


The Water's Edge

by MyCoconutStars



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Case Fic, Consentual Sex, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:33:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 45,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyCoconutStars/pseuds/MyCoconutStars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel decides to get in on the hunting life in the months following Purgatory. Now they're on a case involving mysterious deaths in a town called Scotland, Connecticut, and Dean's having bad dreams.</p>
<p>Associated art by Majesticduxk:<br/>http://majestic-duxk.livejournal.com/58559.html</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ** A certain character speaks in a Burns-era Scottish dialect. He or she is not necessarily meant to be understandable except from the surrounding characters.
> 
> ** This is a case fic, so there are casualties of minor characters. 
> 
> ** Thanks so much to the mods at SpnKinkBigBang and the ever kind Majesticduxk for helping me to participate! It's all very exciting!
> 
> **I'm from Scotland, so all of my notes on Scotland CT and American Scottish culture come from hours of research online. Apologies if inconsistencies exist, but they should have been weeded out!

Mary

According to campfire conventions and her know-it-all friend Emily, these sorts of things didn’t happen in broad daylight. That is what Mary Allen, eight years old of Finch Street, thought the moment she could no longer feel her legs. Horror stories only happened to naughty camp counselors and little girls who didn’t say their prayers before bedtime, or so she’d heard.

That was why she hadn’t hesitated on a Tuesday afternoon at half past three, walking down one of only a few roads that passed through her small town. School was a month and a half into term, leaves were changing and scattering along the sides of roads and the topic by the drinking fountains was what everyone was going to be for Halloween in three weeks. Quaint houses dotted the street in the distance, marked more often than not by American flags (as though anyone would ever accuse a person in their town of being unpatriotic) and dogs barked in wide, unfenced yards.  
Know-It-All Emily had already made the turn for her house but their community was so small and tight-knit that everyone knew each other; even alone she had little to fear. Mary looked down at the stream, cold and quick-moving in spite of the unseasonably warm October weather. She shifted her backpack up onto her shoulder, trying to remember why she’d even looked in this direction as she watched a soggy golden-red leaf float by.

A splash-clap retrieved her attention and there she was again, the old woman sitting by the water with her long, scraggly hair covering her shoulders. It reminded Mary of one of those Amish women that sometimes rode by in their buggies, only her hair wasn’t plaited and stuffed into a cap. Gathering her courage, the little girl remembered her teacher’s words - a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet - and made her way down the small slope to the stream. “Hello,” she called. “What are you washing?”

The old woman was indeed soaking great swathes of white cloth that billowed out in the water like clouds but made no reply. Her gnarled hands scrubbed out imaginary stains with a large bar of soap unlike any Mary had seen outside of old-timey souvenir shops, but that was all she could make out from her position a few feet away. A curtain of peppery gray hair obscured the old lady’s face and body, but eight year olds are not known for respecting boundaries and so Mary Allen of Finch Street drew closer and closer still.

“Hey, what are you washing? Are those sheets? Why are you doing it in the stream? Isn’t it cold?” She was leaning over, sneaking a peek at that wizened face -

A scream rent the autumn air, scattering the nearby sparrows from their perches. The old woman was not the granny Mary had expected but a full blown hag out of her Big Book of Fairytales. A withered, pinched face gaped open around a maw stuck through with long, yellowed teeth. There were so few of them that they might have been better suited to opening cans than to chewing. The old woman’s rheumy eyes were hard and cruel and she had enormous drooping breasts bared to the air. Her body was riddled with liver spots and warts right down to the webbed feet that smacked angrily at the ground. “I -” Mary panicked. “I - I -”

The wet sheet was yanked from the stream and wrapped around Mary’s legs, pulling her down to the sparse grass and earth with a painful thunk. There were stars in her eyes and a keen agony raced across her back but her legs… there was no feeling below her waist. “Mama?” she called out, wheezing where the breath had been knocked out of her. “Mom?”

In the backpack tangled awkwardly around her wrist and elbow, math homework and cookies she’d saved from lunch were waiting. At her quaint single family home on Finch Street, with its white siding and green front door, Mary Allen’s mother was waiting. A stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet, she thought as tears pricked at her eyes. Things like this just didn’t happen in broad daylight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Dean**

“It says here two days ago both mother and child died,” Sam called from the back seat. From the corner of his eye Dean could see his gargantuan legs stretched across the black leather, his brother’s trusty laptop perched precariously on top. It was weird, too weird, to see Sammy sitting there instead of riding shotgun. It was like he’d stepped into bizarro world or had eaten a bad enchilada before going to sleep in one of their crummy hotel rooms. “I know it’s just one case but Cas is right, Dean. This is totally the kind of thing we need right now.”

Need was right; they hadn’t had anything to occupy their idle hands while Heaven underwent civil war or whatever it was those dicks were doing up there. Cas had evidently bowed out if the way he stared out the window from the Impala’s passenger side was anything to go by, watching wordlessly as miles of highway and half-naked Silver Maple and White Oak passed them in a blur. Their very own angel mascot had stopped flitting about place to place when he’d agreed to stay with the Winchesters. Turned off Angel Radio, Cas had said. Didn’t want anything to do with that place anymore.

Dean snorted as he remembered that self-assured grin, that conviction that becoming a hunter was the best solution for what amounted to a baby in a trenchcoat; then again, he and Sammy had agreed to it. “You’d better not have your ugly feet all over Baby’s upholstery,” he warned his moose of a brother.

Sam let out a long suffering sigh loud enough to be heard over Mötley Crüe. “It’s not like you haven’t done worse,” he said as shifted his feet back over the edge of the seat. Need Dean remind him of the time he stuck an iPod in her? “The article says the mother came across the little girl lying next to a stream but she couldn’t walk. Doctor’s couldn’t figure out what had happened to her.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Dean argued. “Things with medical explanations.” Cas appeared to shift in his seat, refolding his hands in his lap. He’d caught him resting his head against the window a few minutes earlier, but whatever was going on in that angel’s head was not coming forth voluntarily. He’d give it a few more minutes of brooding and then goad him into telling.

“Yeah, but both of them died in hospital a few hours later. Doctors were standing in the room, watching the mother sitting by her daughter’s bed when they suddenly just - expired!” From over his shoulder he could hear Sam crunching on a handful of almonds he’d stashed away somewhere back there and Dean rolled his eyes.

“Could have been Ebola or something. That’s been going around these days.”

“Death caused by the Ebola virus usually occurs between six and sixteen days after symptoms begin to show,” Cas said. It was the first thing he’d said in four hours or more. “They had none of the symptoms, either. I don’t recall saying their insides were leaking out of them.”

“I’m just saying it could be a medical thing!”

“The little girl - Mary Allen - said she saw an old woman washing something in a stream right before it happened. Sound natural to you?” Sam poked him in the shoulder. “No. I’m with Cas on this one. It’s definitely one of ours.”

“Alright! Okay. I’m driving there aren’t I? Nothing for you two princesses to get all worked up about.” He ran his palm over the short spikes of his hair and glanced at the passenger side again. “How you doin’, Cas?”  
 

   “I’m fine.”  
   

Dean overtook a Japanese hatchback and then looked at his friend appraisingly. “You sure? ‘Cause it can be hard, you know. I know I -”  
   

“I’m fine, Dean.” Still Castiel’s eyes were directed somewhere far, somewhere beyond the window and the road beyond. His fingers twitched in his lap.  
   

Sam met his eyes in the rear-view mirror and the Impala swerved onto the shoulder. The engine went off and the laptop was set aside for a moment. Dean clapped his hands and rolled his shoulders, preparing for ‘the talk’. “Come on. Spit it out.”  
   

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We’re here for you, man.” A huge paw of a hand rested on Cas’ shoulder. “You know we’ve been to Hell and Heaven, and one of us at least has been to Purgatory too. Whatever it is, you can trust us.”

“I know I can trust you,” Cas’ flat voice was rough with emotion. “I know you two are the only thing I’ve got left in Heaven or Earth. That’s just it. Dean, Sam, you two are the only things I’ve got. When I was Leviathan -”

“That’s all over now,” Dean rushed to cut him off. It hurt too much to talk about if he was being honest (and he wasn’t). “That’s in the past, Cas. All we can do is keep moving. I did things in the pit -”

“When I was Leviathan,” the angel pressed, “I did so much damage down here on Earth, but I did so much more in Heaven. I ruined so much with my foolish, misguided - I was obstinate! And now I have to make amends for that. It just seems like this case, this chance to help people, will never be enough. For every one person I try to save there will always be a hundred I’ve killed.”

Well. That was awkward. What were they supposed to say to that? It was true, all of it, no matter how horrible that was to accept. He flexed his fingers against the steering wheel and set his gaze somewhere along the eternally pressed seam of Cas’ black trousers. It was Sam who spoke; Sam, who was much better at the people thing than Dean had ever been. “Well, for what it’s worth we forgive you. We’re happy you’re here and we love you, isn’t that right Dean?”

A grunt was all he got at first, but Dean was fishing deep here. "Sure, love and forgiveness. All that good stuff. Remember Cas, none of us are on Santa's list. None of us are innocents here. We just do what we can. We stick together."

Cas gave him the puppy eyes, those forlorn blue beams turning up to searchlight levels in intensity. Friggin' angels. Then again, Castiel wasn't all angels. Dean cranked his neck back so that he could look at Sam, throwing him a silent We good? before restarting the engine. They made their way along the I-24 towards Chattanooga for a good hour before anyone spoke again.

  
...or rather, it wasn't so much words that were spoken as it was an emission the likes of which left Dean gasping for air, frantically winding down the window. He drove with his head stuck out the window and his little brother's laughter trailing on the wind rushing past. "I swear, actual sasquatch have better manners than you, Sam."

  
“I’m not sure that sasquatch are better at controlling their sphincters than your brother, Dean.”

  
"I couldn't help it! There was a lot of roughage in my breakfast." Sam had finally stopped laughing, but the corners of his eyes were damp. "Can we pull over? I think I need the bathroom."

And so it was that Dean found himself wandering the aisles of a roadside attraction staring at displays of old yoke for oxen and feather balls found in the pillows of the dead. What the hell were those even for, anyway? Was it bad that Dean’s immediate reaction was to research whether or not they could be used to kill ghosts? Cas, on the other hand, seemed to be scrutinizing each exhibit in detail, giving commentaries on how accurate he thought descriptions of life on the prairies had been. It weirded Dean out a little, but the knowledge that his good buddy had actually been there also gave him tingles in his happy places. The Little Angel that Could bumped against his shoulder from time to time as they grimaced at a bench covered in blood from a hillbilly feud and decaying bottles of prescription drugs from the forties. “The history of the nail?” Dean asked in disbelief. “Seriously?”

“Nails are incredibly important to human history, Dean. Your Sir Walter Scott once said -”

“Your wife’s a witch, man; you should nail a horse-shoe on your chamber door. We know Cas, we’ve been hunters since we were kids. Nails and their lore are part of the package.” That was Sam, wiping his damp hands on the leg of his jeans. He’d been in the men’s for a good twenty minutes and Dean wasn’t sure whether to be appalled or impressed. “Anything made of iron can be used as a weapon against monsters. In fact, I think that was a passage written in Dad’s diary, wasn’t it?”

At least their friend had the decency to blush. His slender fingers reached out to pick up an ancient baby doll and then set it back down again at the grumble of a nearby guard. Guy looked like he brewed moonshine in the basement and used it like Popeye did spinach. “Your father had beautiful handwriting. I’ve been studying.”

Two days ago Cas had shown up in their motel room asking to tag along, restless as hell and looking for something - anything - to keep his mind off of what was going on upstairs. They’d sat down and watched Police Academy 2, eaten popcorn and drank more beer than was reasonable for a case - not that they had one. Dean and Sam had been cooling their heels far too long already and weren’t in much better condition than Cas, but then he and his trenchcoat had settled on the threadbare sofa between them and for that night at least they had relaxed. At least they didn’t have to worry about where he was, about what might have gotten him. “Stick around, Cas,” they’d said. “Take a load off.”

The following day the Winchester brothers had pulled some patented family hustling moves at the pool tables, narrowly avoided a bar fight and come back to find their angel sitting calmly at the table, clicking through web pages and asking about some of the search history that a man shouldn’t have to explain if he didn’t want to, damn it. Apparently he’d been researching ‘the life’ in the meantime too.

“You think it’s a witch we’re after?” Dean asked from his position next to something called a devil’s burl, addressing neither of them in particular. Cas shook his head and looked to Sam for support.

“I don’t think a witch would take out a little girl with a wet sheet, which is what paralyzed her from the waist down in the first place. I’ve never heard of that.”

“I’ve got us clocked at around fourteen, fifteen hours to that part of Connecticut, ten if we haul ass.” Dean saluted the moonshine guy and led the party of three back out to their car. “Do we need to haul ass?”

No answer came as both Sam and Cas paused at the passenger door, looking towards the handle like it was the last bite of pie. “In the back, buddy,” he said, making an executive decision before they could roshambo for it. He held his palms out at the look the angel shot him and reached for his own door. “Hey, it’s not my fault you chose a smaller vessel than the Stretch Armstrong they call my little brother.”

Cas squinted hard, looked from one to the other and said very simply, “I’ll be back.” He stalked off in the direction of the Museum of Appalachia gift shop. Sam threw his hands up in exasperation.

“Certainly keeps things interesting,” Dean commented, settling back behind the wheel to dig around for his Kansas tapes. “I kinda like having him around. Cas really is the only angel in all of the heavenly choirs who isn’t a complete dick.”

“Maybe just a junior dick. Dick lite,” Sam snorted, booting up the latest in a series of laptops (may their predecessors rest in peace). “I know what you mean. He makes us less likely to kill each other.” In a look perfected over the lifetime they’d spent together, the brothers silently evaluated the dangers of keeping one of Heaven’s Most Wanted in their company and then dismissed them as unimportant. Cas was family and family was everything.

“The heavenly choirs are an entirely different department. I’m not a very good singer, actually.” The voice from the back seat nearly got someone’s head blown off, followed by Dean downgrading his reaction to a minor heart attack. “I was a soldier.” A very good soldier, he thought he heard. “I got you two something.”

Both brothers looked down at the bars of soap sitting in their laps. “Amber, Cas? Thanks, but -”

“It’s a ward against witches,” Dean interrupted. He looked at his own bar of oatmeal soap and frowned. “And oatmeal wards against fairies.” He ignored the look of admiration coming from the right seat and pulled back onto the highway, squinting into the dying sunlight. It was nearly six at night and they were lucky if they could make it to Connecticut without him falling asleep. Driving up from Southern Alabama with only one victim - well, only one incident at least - and two fidgety ‘I have feelings, Dean’ types was tiring.

“I think you’re right,” Sam directed at the back seat. “It probably is one of those two. Thanks Cas.” Dean could tell he was touched, like something-in-my-eye touched as Cas attempted to make amends and turn their dynamic duo into a trio. Murmuring his own gratitude, he chose to shut up and drive, eat up the road and not think about how it felt like he was itching under his skin.

They pulled into the hotel in Winchester, VA at almost midnight that night. Sam claimed Dean had nearly parked them in the middle of a tree but it was obvious he was just looking for more free Wi-Fi. It turned out that there were a few cultures that featured so-called washerwomen and was eager to narrow it down before they got there. Cas was quiet again for most of the ride, up ‘til the point where they stopped for food in Lexington.

Those jalapeno poppers had been a bad idea for Dean’s guts, but were still infinitely better than Sam’s grilled salmon with side salad. They’d kicked each other under the table until the straw from Cas’ shake was knocked out of his mouth and he stared like they’d stolen his first born. The offended was currently trailing behind Sammy on their way to the room.

“This place smells like ass,” he heard his little brother announce as he pushed his way into room 201. The walls were a lurid macaroni and cheese orange and the floors a charming ‘wood effect’. Even the metal poles meant to be holding up their terrible beds didn’t look real. Another winner.

“Wait, why are there two queen sized beds here, Sammy?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought we were going to ask for two kings so that if we had to share a bed you wouldn’t smother me in my sleep.”

“I don’t need to sleep, Dean,” Cas cut in. “You can each have your own bed.”

“Yeah, Dean.”

“No, Sam. No. I won’t have Cas sitting there in this piece of crap motel chair staring at me all night while I’m in la-la land. Besides, as long as he’s with us he should have his own space to do whatever it is he’s going to do.” He shot a look at his brother as if to say Come on man, I raised you better than this.

“I don’t have to stare at you. I could watch porn on Sam’s laptop again.”

That settled it. Cas would take the bed on the left and the Winchesters would share the one on the right, though Dean was stealing the comforter from the first so that he wouldn’t freeze to death in the night. The wall-hanging TV was on to an old re-run of Doctor Sexy and there, perched on top of the bed with his legs crossed beneath him sat Cas with the same pensive, vaguely sad expression that he always had.

Dean found himself watching the dark furrow of his brow and the reflection of light off of blue eyes that had once belonged to Jimmy Novak as he slid into bed next to an already snoring Sam. He hadn’t thought of Jimmy in so long and now, staring into the flickering play of light upon shadow, he wondered how he could ever associate that visage with anyone but Castiel. Whenever he looked at his fine feathered friend, he saw only one person gazing out; a man that he was proud to have by his side.

The other man he was proud to be close to rolled over in his sleep and threw an arm vaguely the size of a tree trunk over Dean’s chest. Sam was and always had been a cuddler, even in his youngest days. With a soft but not unhappy sigh Dean pressed back against the length of his brother’s torso and grew drowsy in the heat radiating off of his bedmate. He smelled of amber soap.


	3. Chapter 3

**Daniel**

On Cemetery Road there was a pond located in the yard of one of the houses for sale. It had been on sale for such a long time, doubtless in part to its unfortunate location nearby a cemetery, that the local children had taken to playing by it until one of the younger boys fell in and the parents’ association had put a stop to it. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone near it, especially since it didn’t have any fish to catch or frogs to poke with sticks.

“Hey,” called Daniel Paterson Junior of Palmer Road. “Hello?” He was coming back from bagpiping practice when he’d heard a splash and then something a little like a clap originating in the direction of the pond. Daniel was a good boy, a sixteen year old the likes of which parents loved and the potheads sneered at, but he liked it that way. After all, his dad liked to say, if you can’t be a decent member of your own community what do you hope to contribute to the world?

A yellow-green leaf fell on the path by his feet and startled him into wrapping his coat tight around his body, even though it wasn’t that cold out for October. Mrs. MacArthur, their pipe band teacher, said that it was supposed to get chilly soon; it didn’t seem like it would, but that was still no condition for an old lady to be out in. Besides, why was she washing her sheets in the pond water? There was scum on the surface and mud underneath - hardly any condition to be cleaning a thing in. “Ma’am? Do you need any help? It’s not safe over there.”

The woman was wearing some formless thing of green cloth and her long grey hair hung like a ratty curtain over her shoulders, he could just make out in the light of early evening. “Ma’am?”

Daniel looked left and then right. A light came on in the home nearest him, which he thought belonged to the kid who sat behind him in math class. Spencer something? Something Spencer? He scrubbed a hand nervously through his blond hair and thought that maybe he should leave things be; after all, it wasn’t his concern if some lady wanted to do her laundry in the pond. Then again he thought he could make out something on those sheets she was washing, something that looked a heck of a lot like blood. _That’s it_ , Daniel thought. _I’m out of here_.

Without another glance the piper in training took off running in the dusk. He ran by Spencer Something’s house and past the old Chung family, as far as he could until his lungs were fit to burst. “You alright?” came a voice from behind him.

“Oh God, you scared me,” he huffed, hand pressed to his racing heart. “I just saw this woman - this old lady - and she was washing this bloody sheet or something. I’m serious! Don’t look at me like that, she was back there by the pond.”

Angus Buchanan, four years younger and a lifelong friend, looked like he smelled bullshit. “Come on Daniel, Halloween isn’t for another two and a half weeks at least. There’s no need to try and be scary like that, not after what happened to little Mary yesterday. That’s just insensitive.”

“I bet you learned that word on your last spelling test you little twerp. I’m not joking either. Go see for yourself if you don’t believe me.” Daniel had better things to do than cater to little kids, even if those little kids had gotten him babysitting money for a few years back at Angus’ age and had never done a thing to hurt anyone. Fear is making you mean, Daniel, he thought to himself. Remember what your scout leader taught you about being mean.

Angus looked skeptical, but raised his chubby chin high. “Fine, I will.” He started down the road, looking over his shoulder every so often to see if Daniel was going to follow. Daniel was conflicted, thinking of how much bagpiping practice he had to get in before the festival and how many oreos he could stuff in his mouth before his mom asked him to set the table.  
“Angus, come back. I swear to you I wasn’t lying but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go down there on your own.” He rolled his eyes as the younger boy continued his little march of bravery off into the evening gloom. “Come on kiddo, I’m telling you to stop! We can go back to my house and call the police. What if she’s a crazy ax murderer or something?”

“No way. Besides, if she’s the one who did that to the Allens I want to catch her myself.” He kept walking, a smaller and smaller figure as Daniel stood there and watched him leave. He ran his fingers through his hair again, remembered his father telling him it was a bad habit and then took off after his friend.

All the lights were on in the surrounding houses by the time they reached the road and walked past the cemetery itself. Daniel shivered and hiked the bagpipe parts higher on his shoulder, but didn’t leave the asphalt even as Angus took off into the grass. He’d been hoping the old lady would be gone, but she was there humming an eerie tune to herself. “She’s saying something,” Angus called over his shoulder, approaching as if he were entering a lion’s cage. “The song has words.”

“What’s she saying then?” Daniel had a feeling this was a bad, very bad, absolutely no good idea and he wanted to go home now.

“She’s saying - she’s saying names. They’re all names. Roger McHale, Lewis Stewart, Mary Allen? Julia Allen! Daniel she’s saying -”

The next words were cut off with a scream in an octave only young boys who hadn’t hit puberty and opera singers could reach, one that would haunt Daniel Paterson of Palmer Road for the rest of his short life. He clenched his fists to stop them from going over his ears and raced forward to help his friend –

\-- and then he was flying through the air, pin wheeling as a car struck him from the side. Blood matted his blond hair and stained his face as the light went out of his eyes and the air punched out of his bagpipes. People were rushing out of the car to check on the boy, heedless as the washerwoman pulled the sheet out of the water and set it aside. She was finally finished with her work for the night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Dean**

Dean was dreaming of Purgatory again, only Cas was nowhere to be found and the wolves were closing in on him. These wolves had long, curved fangs that gnashed, flinging frothy drool as they closed in on their meal. “Benny?” he tried to call out, unsurprised that his voice wouldn’t work.

Dreams had never been his friend. His skin was burning, he knew. Sweat was dripping into his eyes and his muscles ached as he swung his machete again and again. There were too many of them, an unending swarm of monsters and no one to help him. “Cas?” he tried, and then without letting his fear show, “Sam?”

John was behind him, somewhere beyond the pack of wolves. He couldn’t see the old man for the creatures, but in that weird dual vision that dreams sometimes had Dean had an image of him standing there with same old cocky grin that could promise a dirty joke or an ass whooping. Up to you to guess which. “Dad?” he called. “Why aren’t you - Can you get a few of these suckers?” Help a guy out?

“You’ve always been too attached to Sam, Dean,” called his father. No fingers were being lifted, even as offal rained down on Dean’s head from where he ducked and gutted. “I thought it was my fault. I know I told you he was your responsibility and I’m proud of the way you took care of him, son, but he’s a grown man now and you’re still cuddling him in your sleep.”

“What? No, Dad, I’m just - it’s Cas, he’s gotta have a bed. You know how it is,” he swung a little wide and grazed the jaw of one of the creatures. In exchange one of them sank their teeth into his shoulder and he snarled back. “Sammy and I used to share beds all the time growing up. Needs must!”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, son.” Why was John’s voice carrying over the growling and snapping of the animals right next to his ear? “Friends with a vampire for starters. And the way you look at your brother! I thought it was just some backwards you-and-Sam boundaries thing, but now I hear you’re into the angel too? Where did I get a son with such unnatural habits? What would your mother say?”

“Where’d you hear that?” Dean considered the charges, grunting as his knife sank into the chest of a beast until they were chest to chest and he could see the yellow of the giant wolf’s eyes. Remembered the yellow of the demon who killed their mother. The big i-word and now ...what, zoophilia? What did human-angel relations count as? What circle of Hell had he reached, sin-wise?

“Little busy here, Dad.” He wasn’t going to deny it, even if it didn’t mean much in the real world. He could wake up next to Sammy from time to time and let his heart speed up when Cas furrowed his brows just so and that would be enough, but it was his business and no one else’s. Alcohol could take care of the rest. Anger at being scolded for having what little he had surged within him even as one of the monsters stole the skin off of his right calf and he sank to his knees.

The Winchester patriarch continued his tirade, using filthy words that Dean was sure his father would never have used in real life except for that niggling feeling in the back of his mind that he might. “Dad,” he called out, wiping sweat from his brow that left him open to a claw swipe that reached his ribs. “Dad, a little help please?”

“It’s not even the gay thing, no, I served with brave soldiers back in ‘Nam who were playing hide the sausage every night. You’ve brought this on yourself. You chose this path. You chose your family.”

As darkness fell in the dream world Dean knew only the feeling of gritting his teeth hard enough to break them, biting back the scream that he wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of hearing. He thrashed as they bore down upon him and tore him to pieces.

...and then he woke up, struggling against bonds that slowly revealed themselves to be hands. He had a face full of Sammy’s chest and that smell of amber soap mixed through with whatever it was that made his brother who he was. A third hand was pressed against his cheek, cupping it with a soft palm that was once used for selling ad time for AM radio as the patriarch of a different family.

He forced his vision into focus to see Cas looking down at him, pressed close by his brother’s concerned moue. Sam’s body was, for the most part, still pressed against the length of Dean’s. Their t-shirts were stuck together where Dean had broken a sweat in his sleep, and so he knew that they knew that he knew that they knew he’d been having a nightmare. That’s why he would never ever say anything about it.

“You were dreaming,” said Cas. “Sam was worried.”

Sam glared at the angel. “Cas was seconds away from leaping into your dream world to tell you to wake up.” He paused and then, “I was seconds away from letting him do it.”

“I’m fine. It was just a stupid dream.” Dean’s gaze fell on the curve of Castiel’s mouth, then looked over at Sam and curled his fingers to stop from running his fingers over that goofy haircut. Pulling him down. Kissing the breath out of his lungs and erasing his little brother’s stupid, worried frown. “Anyone up for some pancakes?”

 

 

It was early afternoon by the time they pulled into a parking lot on Waldo that was apparently Reserved for Participants, and turned off the Impala by a series of open white tents pitched intermittently along the green. “What’s that sound?” Dean yelled over the screeching of half a dozen banshees in a variety of tones. He stretched his arms over his head and adjusted his tie, “Why the hell are there so many bagpipes here?”

  
“I believe it is a tribute to their Scottish ancestors, particularly as this village is called Scotland.” Cas was so earnest, so eager to help that Dean’s jaw worked towards a reply that it never found. He had a point though; when they were in a place called Scotland, Connecticut it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there were pipers. And drums. And a hell of a lot of dudes in skirts.

“These are the Scotland CT Highland Games, according to the website,” Sam declared as he zipped the laptop up and tossed it under the passenger seat. The non-Winchester had been relegated to the back seat again that morning but spent most of it reading over their father’s diary again. And if it made Dean sick to look at it after the dream he’d had that morning? Wasn’t anything to worry about. “The whole town’s here this afternoon.”

Scotland was not a particularly large country, but it was an even smaller town. It had weird names for places like Toleration Road and Devotion Road, Cemetery Road and a few of the more common ones too. There were less than two thousand residents and all, apparently, were incredibly proud of their Scottish heritage. Even the ones with no such ancestry whatsoever. Little girls wandered by in their highland dancing dresses and more than half were dressed in some sort of family tartan. Three men in black suits (albeit one mostly hidden by trench coat) stood out like a sore thumb.

“Yoo hoo! Hey, over here!” The voice came from a plump, middle-aged woman dressed in a vague approximation of something Europeans might have worn in the eighteenth century. Maybe. “Welcome to the Scottish Festival! I’m sorry but you’ll have to move your car, this area is for performers and artisans only. If I could just direct you to the off-site parking, you’re welcome to buy a ticket and take the shuttle bus back to the festival grounds.”

“How much are tickets?” asked Cas.

“Fifteen for adults.” Their greeter gestured with thick fingers down the road, prepared to send them on their way before Dean interrupted with a snort.

“Fifteen dollars? Really?” He raised an eyebrow and got the evil eye for his efforts. “I mean yeah, sure. Fifteen dollars. Nice place you’ve got here.”

Sam elbowed him the side. “What my associate meant to say is that we’re here to judge the, uh, well,” he shot around for a ruse, “The harp. Competition. Harp Circle. For a new scholarship to be presented by the Scottish Society of Eastern America. I’m Cliff Williams and these are my fellow society members, Brian Johnson and Angus Young.”

A shadow crossed over the woman’s face and for a second all three of them looked at one another like they’d just been caught, but the next second she was dabbing daintily at her eyes with a thistle-embroidered handkerchief and heck if that made any sense. “Ma’am?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that you share the same name as our little Angus who passed away so tragically yesterday evening. We’re just reeling under the loss these days, and just before the pride of the community too.”

“Angus?” asked Brian-Dean. “We read in a newspaper about Mary Allen, but…?”

“Yes, the Allen family as well. Single mother and her daughter on Friday and then Angus and Daniel yesterday. I don’t know what this town is coming to - it’s like we’re cursed! Four deaths in one week has never happened in Scotland, not since the area got its name way back in 1700. My little heart can’t take much more of this.” She sniffed into her handkerchief again and then said, “Judges have to buy tickets as well, though.”

Five minutes later Dean was still grumbling about forty-five dollars and how they’d have to get the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of hotel rooms. Cas was smiling at everything, taking in the black and white border collies herding small groups of sheep and the stands full of hanging bouquets of dried herbs and Scottish flags.

“And another thing,” Dean went on, “Why couldn’t I have been Bon Scott? At least then I would have been Scottish at least. Cas gets to be Angus? And you! You willingly chose to be the bassist! Who raised you?”

The answer came to him quickly enough from the dregs of the nightmare he’d had and the roll he was on came to an abrupt end. Sam raised an eyebrow whatever the look on his face was and shot him a silent look that said there would be talking later.

“I think we should investigate the herbs,” Cas said gruffly. “Could be witchcraft.”

Sam looked at his brother sideways and then nodded at ‘Angus’. “Good thinking. You two head over there and I’ll go interview some of the townspeople over by the fish and chips wagon.”

“That’s not particularly related to Scottish ancestry,” Cas pointed out, looking at his two friends for a cue on social norms. “...but I’d like to try it if you happen to get some.”

Dean grinned and slung an arm over their buddy’s shoulder. “That’s the spirit. Deep-fried and sprinkled with salt? What could go wrong? Hurry back, eh, Cliff?”

The drive over from the night before had taken them six hours and Dean was eager to work, but would much rather have been pumping something full of rock salt than sniffing a version of it infused with roasted garlic. Dried yellow and pale green stalks lined the edge of the festival tent, but there were also a myriad of jars lined up on tables blocking them from the vendor. There was a banner hanging down low proclaiming things like ‘handmade’ and ‘from traditional techniques’. He looked up at the older man and woman behind the table, noting the way they moved easily within each other’s space. An old married couple then.

“So, you been sellin’ these a long time?” he asked, tucking his hands into his the pockets of his suit pants. The shape of the FBI badge they’d been meaning to use as a cover pressed against his arm through his jacket. Quick thinking on his brother’s part, but if he’d had the choice between wearing a suit and not…

“Thirty years this spring,” said the woman, who turned out to be called Martha. Cas reached for a jar of lavender and held it up to her. He looked a second away from holding her up by the frilly collar of her appropriately quaint getup.

“Do you know what this is good for?”

“Bath bombs, potpourri sachets, or maybe as an ingredient in some Herbes de Provence?” The statement went up at the end along with Martha’s eyebrow. Her husband rearranged a couple of the jars and appeared to pay them no attention.

“I would have accepted sacrifices to an ancient god, but that is also true.” He shrugged at Dean, who chose to ignore that.

“My friend has a point though,” he said as he ran his fingers over some of the home-printed labels. “Do you ever use any of your products in witchcraft?”

“Oh Lord, no!” Martha exclaimed, horrified. She crossed herself and nudged her silent partner to do the same. “Any and all herbs that come from Martha’s Herb Garden are to be used in the name of Jesus, Amen. Now if you’re interested in some sage or marjoram, I can help you, but if you’re not I think you’d best move along.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” said Dean, grabbing Cas by the elbow to head him over to the next tent. They were met in between by a large, red-faced man in a kilt and black balmoral, complete with pom. The latter made his head look a bit like an oversized mushroom.

“Greetings, greetings! I hear you’re here to judge the harp competition. Very odd, as we only ever have one judge for that, but no matter. I’m surprised none of you wore your family tartans.” He reached out and pinned a red ribbon on each of them and brushed some invisible fuzz off of Dean’s shoulder.

“It’s for the children,” Cas said. “The scholarships and so on. Think of the children.”

“Of course! How could we not?” In a smile far too ingratiating he added, “Children are our future, eh? But uh, where’s the third one of you guys? The really big one?”

A bit rich coming from a guy no better than 5’7, but Dean humoured him anyway. “He’s over by the chip wagon...flirting with one of the dancers, apparently.” There was Sam with his arms full of styrofoam containers, no doubt working one of his terrible pickup lines on a tiny blonde creature buried in plaid.

“That’s my daughter,” said the mushroom, flatly.

“Oh. Right, I’ll just uh - Cliff!” he yelled across the festival grounds. “The grub’s gonna get cold!”

Sam’s response was his patented _my brother, seriously guys_ glare and keep chatting with the young woman, while the air around them got more and more awkward. “I’ll go get him,” said Cas. “You just talk to the nice man here, Brian.”

Dean blinked, torn between pride and indignation. “Yeah, Angus. I’ll just. Yeah.” He turned to the man and turned up the high beams on his smile. “What I think my partner was actually asking about was series of recent accidents around here. We’re just in town for the festival and already we’ve heard about things like people dying. It’s a little worrying, you know?”

“Oh yes, very tragic. One mother and three children in two days, if you can believe it. I just don’t know what this town is coming to.” He shook his head and then held out a hand. “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is George Magoon - with two ohs - and I’m on the Inland Wetlands Commission.”

“Sounds fascinating. Brian Johnson, Scottish Society of Eastern America.” The handshake was vice-like and Dean mentally filed away that here was a man used to getting what he wanted, underscored with a healthy vein of anger. Not that Sam wouldn’t mop the floor with him in a fight, but he should be made aware. “So, anything we should be worried about around here?”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” said the mushroom. George. Must remember to call him George. “As long as you stay away from bodies of water.”

“What’s with bodies of water?”

“Abby - Mr. Magoon’s daughter - says all of the accidents have happened within spitting distance of water,” Sam answered just as he stepped into their little discussion circle. Cas had a sour expression on his face as he’d been saddled with the better part of their food containers, but dutifully stood to the side while Sam shook hands and accepted his judge’s badge. “Your daughter’s a fine young woman.”

“Yes, she is,” answered George coolly. “She’s the pride of Scotland, as good a harpist as she is a dancer. If she were playing today you’d have your winner already, ask anyone.”

“Don’t worry, Cliff’s just rolling through. I’ll make sure he keeps his hands to himself,” Dean said as he patted his brother on the shoulder. “Nothing to fear from us Scottish Society members!”

Making their goodbyes, all three men headed back to the Impala to trade information. In the middle of the car sat open containers of thick cut, greasy as hell fries and fish so heavily battered it was more carb than protein. Dean moaned loudly as he stuffed a handful of potato in his mouth and then began to mumble about waterways and washerwomen.

“I really don’t see how it could be a witch at this point,” he said, gesturing with a soggy bit of fish. “There’s no evidence that points to witchcraft and the thing only appears near water. We’ve gotta look for that old lady, the one that Mary girl talked about.”

“I heard from Abby that the one kid, Angus? Had his arms ripped off and he bled to death right by a pond. Poor little guy.” Sam gingerly broke off a bit of fish and glanced longingly at the glove compartment, where Dean was sure he’d hidden away some cherry tomatoes or something. “Why would the first two victims die of nothing in particular and the second two in horrible bloody messes?”

“What happened to the fourth victim?”

“Hit by a car right next to Angus,” Cas said. He watched as Dean attempted to play airplane and trick Sam into eating some of the chips, but folded his hands on his lap. “I’m not sure what the significance of that is either.”

“And it’s not some kind of weird hoodoo spell?” Dean huffed, scrunching his face as Sam mashed potato against his cheek.

“Dean, think about it. This place is called Scotland - what do you think the chances are that we’re going to find something not related to the Saltire?”

“You may have a point, Sammy. What do you think, Cas? Should we check out the pond later?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Castiel**

He blinked at the question. Were they addressing him? Because he’d thought they were too busy tickling each other with oily fingers in the front seat. He chewed, briefly thinking of the stint where he’d eaten a small mountain’s worth of hamburgers, then licked the salt from his fingers. It wasn’t as though he needed to eat, and he felt that if he didn’t he wouldn’t count as a real hunter. “I think we should catch her before she murders anyone else, so yes, Dean. I think we should go visit the pond.”

The younger Winchester frowned at his tone, shooting looks towards his brother as though he suspected Castiel might go rogue angel at any moment. He wasn’t. He would never. It was just that he felt a little left out and the guilt that crawled through his skin at any given moment of any given day was irritating and painful, an itch that he could never scratch. He looked up and saw Dean watching him, evaluating how necessary another talk about how Castiel was doing would be. “I’m sorry. I guess I just feel the urge to act quickly.”

“Well yeah,” said Dean, “But if we can’t figure out where and what she is we can’t exactly gank her can we?”

It was Sam who reached back and gave Castiel’s knee a squeeze. “We’ll get her, Cas. We will get her, just like we’ll get a ton of other monsters in the future. We protect people and now you do too. Just trust us a little, okay?”

Trusting them was the easy part. There had never been a moment since Castiel had yanked Dean out of Hell that he hadn’t trusted him, and after the history of bad decisions Sam and he had between them he was learning that the Winchesters, both of them, were the very best of humanity.

His heart surged with love at the thought and he looked down at his lap, ignoring the easy way that Dean’s knee leaned against Sam’s and what it felt like to be included and yet not. “I trust you,” he agreed. “I have done some foolish things against my own instincts, but in my heart I have always trusted you.”

Dean wiped his mouth on a napkin and reached back to tilt Castiel’s chin up. He favored him with one of those lingering gazes that Castiel thought of in the night, replaying over and over while the boys slept. “Hey. No more of that self-sacrificing bull crap, alright? I’m not going to tell you again. You’re one of us, Cas.”

“He’s right. The moment you accept that, the easier it will be.” Sam snorted, a nostalgic little smile on his face. “Lord knows I learned that the hard way. Cutting yourself off from your family never works.”

It might have been impulsive of him, but that had always been one of Castiel’s flaws: he reached forward and grabbed Dean’s hand in his left and Sam’s in his right. In little circles on their callused palms he told them things he wasn’t sure either of them wanted to hear, not from him. Maybe from each other. Neither brother moved for quite a while, both staring at their hands with vaguely uncomfortable expressions.

“Right,” Dean said, snapping out of some sort of trance. “I think we should go judge some goddamn harping what do you think?”

The harps in question were not the gigantic, gilded things he had watched his brothers and sisters play in Heaven. They were not the tiny, handheld ones that cupids carried and people often mistook as Greek. They were something in between, carved of wood with a high, clear sound and markings along the sides that Castiel remembered as Celtic Revival rather than anything ancient. Some were decorated with roses, others with Celtic knots. Still, it was beautiful to listen to the human sounds, to that physical representation of the need to connect with something higher. Certainly he understood it.

As the intermediate performers wound down, Sam was clapping wildly while Dean looked to be falling asleep between the two of them. He poked his friend in the side and attempted to wake him. “I’m okay, I’m fine,” he said, scrubbing at his eyes. “It’s just like listening to a dozen lullabies is all. Can’t expect a man to stay awake through that.”

Sam looked as though he wanted to say something, but clapped his brother on the back and tucked a hand down the back of Dean’s collar to hold his head up. Castiel supposed he might have been concerned about the nightmare the night before and the resulting lack of sleep. He’d watched him thrash for a good twenty minutes or more while Sam’s fingers crept over Dean’s stomach, over his chest, shook his chest, slapped his cheek… and somewhere in the middle of that their eyes had met and “Cas, help me,” was all he had needed to hear. All he was looking for was an invitation to be a part of them, didn’t they know that?

Castiel didn’t know if it was a surprise or not that Dean reached for his fingers and squeezed them tight as he fought to stay awake. He relished the feeling of a warm hand flexing and releasing against his, because if Dean could do that it meant he was alive and that they could fix whatever else might be wrong with him. It meant that ‘Cas’ had done his job and protected his charge. He stared straight ahead at the curves of these Celtic harps, not willing to question why he thought they looked like human hearts.

That slow, steady silence that had been his companion for millennia held him through the award ceremony, as Sam and Dean chose whoever the actual judge had chosen to be the recipient of their fake scholarship. Castiel wondered if they would arrange something real for the young harpist, as he had often seen them provide for those young people caught in their whirlwind path.

He said nothing as they made their goodbyes, only glanced at Sam as he got into the back seat that was his new home. Maybe it was because he wasn’t used to having to move through the spaces between, to move linearly instead of instantly. _Yes_ , he told himself, _that must be it_.

Dean’s beloved Impala pulled over on the side of Cemetery Road, crunching leaves under its tires. A gathering of flower bouquets and stuffed animals painted the otherwise normal fall scenery in a grim light and Castiel bent down to run his finger overs over one of the teddy bears. “I regret that this came to pass before we could stop it,” he said softly.

“Me too man,” agreed Sam as he moved towards the pond. “You’ll learn in this business, kids are. Kids are the toughest cases, I think.”

“We’ll get this bitch. Don’t worry Cas, we will get her.”

There was no one there, washerwoman or otherwise, but that didn’t stop the boys from getting to their knees and rifling through the grass, searching for clues. Castiel knelt by the pond, staring into its green glassy surface with his hands digging into the moist earth at its edge. It smelled...strange. Horsey, sweat-soaked and not unlike rough wool. Tweedy, he might have said.

“We need to look at an encyclopedia of fairies,” he called out. “The washerwoman is not an agent of witchcraft strictly speaking, but it is from a spell. Someone has summoned a being of Avalon.”

“Cas?” Dean called over his shoulder, turning away from his work. “You wanna let us know how you know that?”

He did explain, but it was odd referring to memories from several hundred years before their birth. “Once upon a time I saw several members of the MacDonald clan of Scotland escape a massacre, but they said that they heard the weeping of a similar creature lurking near the water. That’s what told them to stay away. When we angels moved in to watch the events unfold, there was a similar smell to what is here in this pond. That’s all I can tell you.”

“You stood by and watched?” mumbled Sam, but soon shook his head and waved it away.

A heavy hand clapped down on his back. “Well, hot damn! Having you around could be a beautiful thing, buddy. You know, after all this crap up in Heaven is done and over with you could always consider staying with us. We could use the help, couldn’t we Sammy?”

Sam scrunched up his face at the lie (Winchesters never needed anyone but themselves, John had often said), but nodded anyway. “Sounds like you’re talking about a banshee, but nobody’s heard any weeping and wailing in this case. What did you say the clan name was again?”

“MacDonald. It was right before the eighteenth century, that much I am able to recall.” He savored the way that Sam’s eyes lit up at the information, at recalling that Castiel was a keeper of human history as well, not just one who had nearly destroyed it. His laptop was up and searching the very second they were back in the car, heading for the Allen site. Faint traces of excitement radiated from him as he scanned web page after web page, often with seven or eight tabs open at the same time. Castiel watched Dean smile at that, saw the pride on his brother’s face, and felt awash with his own warm emotions.

“Glencoe,” Sam gushed. “It was called the Massacre at Glencoe in 1692. The story of something called a caoineag, the thing you said the MacDonalds heard? It’s recorded in the Carmina Gadelica, which I remember Bobby having a copy of in his library.”  
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Do we need to call Garth?”

“I dunno, I mean it’s not the same thing is it? It’s not a caoineag, but it’s something similar. And we’ve dealt with fairies before, so.” Sam shrugged and looked back at Castiel of all people for support.

“We three are all we need to get through this, I’m sure of it,” he confirmed. Sam’s smile suggested he’d responded correctly, so Castiel hesitantly smiled back.

The smell lingered at the second (technically first) scene as well. It was fainter than the one by the river, but still Castiel was taken back to old places of worship full of unwashed yeomen and their superstitious habits. He thought of fairies and their magic, and of the time that one of them had kidnapped Dean. This time only the older brother went searching by the banks of the stream and Sam stayed with Castiel in the car.

“Cas, what was it like?” He tilted his head and Sam added, “At the massacre I mean. What was it like to have lived through history like that?”

“I wasn’t alive, not in the way that you are now,” he answered, pressing his lips together in an apologetic smile. “Besides, you and Dean have already been instrumental to the human race, whether or not it’s ever written in the history books.”He hoped it would be enough, but couldn’t let the other man’s face fall as it did at that clipped explanation.

“I was a soldier, Sam. We watched battles on earth as often as we participated in them elsewhere. This, though, this was called a massacre for a reason. The MacDonalds were cut down by the people they’d invited into their homes and when their houses had burned to the ground many more died of exposure. It was a heinous crime and cowardly. I saw a few good-hearted men break their swords rather than agree to hunt down their unarmed hosts with their women and children.”

“Couldn’t you do anything?”

“It was not in our orders.” Castiel frowned. “I never disobeyed my orders before I met you and your brother.”

“Well for what it’s worth, I’m glad you did.” If Sam had meant to continue, he was cut off by a shout from Dean down at the bottom of the slope. Without thinking Castiel vanished from the vehicle and appeared on the grass several feet away from his charge.

There before them sat a horrific looking creature with one nostril and webbed feet. It was a woman insofar as it had heavy, drooping breasts but there was little else to lend credence to that point. Sam had fired off a silver bullet that sank through the green cloth covering her shoulders and she let out a shriek, clutching at the smoking hole left behind.

“Dean, get back!” shouted Castiel, brandishing his angel blade even as the hag swung a wet sheet in his direction. “Dean!”

The elder Winchester rolled out of the way and straight into the water, soaking his jeans. She advanced upon him with her sheet, perhaps looking to smother him, but Dean scrambled away and Sam got off another shot. This one went wide but got her attention long enough for Dean to dig in his pocket for …a bar of soap?

He lobbed the oatmeal-filled souvenir at her head and she vanished in an instant, leaving the three of them staring at one another, heaving with the adrenaline of the sudden attack. Castiel and Sam were running down the hill to grab their fallen comrade, who was struggling to get to his feet. The soap lay in the grass, taking up the space where the hag had been and with it was the overwhelming scent of the unwashed.

“Can you smell that?” he asked, but the other two shook their heads. Sam had an arm hooked under Dean’s shoulder and they began to walk, but within two steps it was obvious that there was something wrong with his left foot. “Dean?”

“I’m fine, Cas, I just uh.” He sighed shakily, “I think she might have got me a little.”

He sank to his knees and pressed his fingers to the worn, dusty leather of Dean’s boot, feeling for the inconsistency in blood flow there. It was numb and cold, like something had stolen the life right out of it. He looked up into green eyes, then over to the slightly bluer of Sam’s. “Those aren’t sheets she’s washing. They’re death shrouds.”

As he had done so many times before, Castiel healed the injury and walked shoulder to shoulder with Dean as they went up the hill. Saving Dean, even if he couldn’t save anyone else, seemed to be his calling in life. He needed to be better at it.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Dean called out to an overbearing, protective little brother. “I can walk. Though I’ve gotta say, if it weren’t for you two just now I think that crazy bitch would’ve given me a run for my money. Chick can move!”

“Now that we’ve seen it I think we should get our room for the night, order something in and regroup. If it’s as Cas says and someone has summoned this thing, we’re gonna have to figure out who’s doing it in order to get rid of it.”

And so it was that Castiel was entrusted with looking up places to stay on Dean’s phone while Dean drove and Sam continued to look up information on the thing that had nearly cost them, well, everything. “How about the Marriott?”

“Haha, nice try. If it has a pool, it’s probably out of our price range. Especially with the price of those tickets this morning. Gonna have to bust out one of our reserve credit cards soon.”

Castiel stayed in the car while the other two went into the Peacock Chinese something something, so engrossed was he in his mission. Back and forth, back and forth he swiped and scrolled through meaningless redirects and reviews that told him nothing about the price. Why were people so concerned over whether or not a room came with a ‘shower cap’?

Finally he reached the bottom of the proverbial barrel and hit the button to make a reservation. A buzzing sound followed by a series of numbers appeared on the screen, and then a small voice came out of Dean’s phone announcing the name of the inn he had just clicked.

“Hello?” he said, holding up the phone to his ear. “My friends and I would like a room at your establishment for at least one night. Yes, three adults. No, I don’t know what an AARP discount is.” The voice on the other end was very polite and talked him through the process and by the end of the call that he hadn’t meant to make, Castiel felt as though he could get used to living amongst humans after all.

Sam settled into the passenger side with a stack of tinfoil and containers while Dean took his phone back. “So? Did you find a place?”

“Yes, Dean. I called and made a reservation at a Convenient Inn in Chaplin. The woman was very helpful. She said we could use a credit card, but I didn’t tell her it would be a reserve one.” The grin he returned was cautious. He often thought he was getting better at reading the Winchesters only to discover that he’d made a grave error in judgment.

“Look at you! Good for you, Cas. You’ve been a big help.” Sam called back, looking for a way to balance his computer on top of his lap while holding the food upright with his calves.

“Yeah, Mr. Fancypants. You’ve come such a long way from that incident at the strip club that we’re never speaking of again.”

If they weren’t speaking of it then why would he…? Never mind. Castiel began directing Dean to the junction between highways 198 and 6, then looked down at his legs when he learned that his help was no longer needed.

“I’m not sure that my pants would be considered fancy by current standards. I think they were chosen for function over form and possibly came from a J C Penneys.”


	6. Chapter 6

**???**

The hag was not one of many words, but she appeared before her master when she was called. She was burning with the pain of a silver bullet and aching to get revenge. After all, she was just the messenger. You weren’t supposed to shoot the messenger.  
“What the hell happened to you?”

“Hunters,” she rasped. “An’ an angel. I wad be laith to rin an' chase the likes o’ them. Ye little ken what right smeddum hunters can be.” Tears flowed freely down her withered cheeks at that and not for the first time she wished she had never been summoned. “How daur he set a finger-end upon sae fine a woman as me! ‘Twas a bullet that done it!”

“A what? No. No, no, no. You’re not even from this world, nothing’s supposed to be able to hurt you! I called you here, you’re supposed to do my bidding. Did you even catch anything today?”

“I missed!” she seethed, air sucking in sharply around her few remaining teeth as her summoner dug around in the wound. “I needed to start awa sae hasty like, an’ naething for it.”

Master’s head shook in disappointment. Or possibly confusion. “Next time, I expect you to do better than this. You serve my clan, you hear me? Just as generations before me have called upon you to do our bidding, you will obey me!”

She nodded sadly. “Aye, yet the best laid schemes gang aft agley. John Comasco, wha hae your lawnmower?” Her voice went up, hoping for an explanation there that never came. “He’s nae Scot. I cannae kill him.”

An irritated hand wiped down her master’s face. “Are you trying to tell me under that pile of gibberish that you can’t kill people without Scottish blood in them?”

“Aye, there’s that.” Among other things. She fiddled with the edges of her green cloak, eager to be done with all of this. Seven hundred years she’d been washing and she knew in her tired bones this would all end badly.

“What a mess. The hunters, then, are they of Scottish ancestry?

“Campbells on their maither’s, sae far as I ken.”

“Excellent.”

 

 

**Sam**

He didn’t want to make a scene, but he’d known something was up the moment they’d registered for room 107 and been handed the key. Call it intuition, call it experience, but somehow the idea that Cas had made it through an entire phone call and set things up normally didn’t sit right with him. When he pushed the key into the lock and shoved the door open, he knew he’d been right.

“So, uh,” he started, setting his bag down on the floor and flicking on the light. “A single bed?”

“You didn’t use it last night so I figured you wouldn’t need it again. Besides, I understand king-sized beds are the most spacious.”

“Technically that would be a California King, but you did well.” Dean shot Sam a warning look as he set down their beer on the counter and started on the mini fridge. “I’m not sure whether to be impressed or disappointed that this place doesn’t have magic fingers.”

“My fingers can be used for magic if that is what you seek, Dean.” Sam nearly choked on the laugh that wanted to burst out of his mouth. And his nose. There was their resident angel, always eager to be of service when his brother was involved. Then again that was unkind; Sam could name a few times when Cas had answered his prayers, too - when Cas had been there for him. He was quiet for a moment and then realized that Dean wasn’t saying anything either.  


Sam looked up to find Dean staring at Castiel with a haunted look in his eyes. Magic fingers? That was what set him off? Because maybe Dean actually felt that way about Cas and wow, that would explain a lot. He studied the soft, gelled spikes of Dean’s hair so that he wouldn’t have to look at his brother’s eyes and then sighed internally. “You guys okay if I take the first shower?”

A couple of grunts were his only answer. There was tightness behind his eyes that followed him into the bathroom and hastened the door shutting behind him. “Okay. Okay.” He laid his palms on either side of the sink and stared into the grungy drain. “You can deal with this.”

Except that he couldn’t, he thought as he yanked off his tie and dress shirt. Sam’s mind had been messed up enough lately about the codependent relationship he had with his brother, let alone throwing their favorite feathery rebel into the mix. He stepped out of his trousers and his boxer briefs then ignored the twinge between his legs as he turned on the water. Darn motel taps never worked the same way twice. Besides, who was to say which one of the two men outside the door he was reacting to?

When Sam Winchester was stressed, he threw himself into his work. That was why he found himself scrubbing furiously at his hair, naming every fairy he had ever heard of in folklore or otherwise. “Sprite, banshee, asrai, brownie, troll, pixie…”

In the shadows of his mind, swallowed down beyond the edge of his gag reflex, his brother and his ...what? Best friend? undressed each other. Dean was kissing along the side of Cas’ throat, nuzzling at the junction of his shoulder like he’d seen him do so many times before to girls, and Cas was moaning and nudging his hips forward, pressing against the inviting warmth between Dean’s legs. Sam was going to throw up. Or maybe jack it. Either way he couldn’t deal with this.

The water went off and Sam toweled down as quietly as he could, listening against the scuffed wood of the door for any signs that he was right. He’d thought up a plan: if they were going at it on that king that Cas had signed them up for and he would drive around all night.

He never slept when Dean had company, only stared unblinking into the darkness for hours on end because the inside of his eyelids would burn him. The prospect of that company being the one thing they shared that wasn’t each other, well. It was a good thing he hadn’t eaten yet.

All he could make out was the faint sound of a laugh track from the flat screen on the wall and the real laughter of the other two. It didn’t sound like that confident, naughty laugh that lovers made when they teased one another, so Sam opened the door. Over on the bed Cas and Dean were sitting there with their shoes off and beers in their hands, pressed up against the pillows. Out in front of them were all the cartons of food with their lids still on and the chopsticks lay out. Dean’s eyes were aglow with happiness. “I was just saying that Cas might be either really good or really bad at strip poker.”

“He’s got the face for a bluff, but I don’t know how good he’d be at the game.” Now that the grip of jealousy had released him, he couldn’t believe how fast the two of them had gotten into a dirty conversation. It figured.

“I was very highly prized for my strategic manoeuvres in my garrison,” Cas said around the mouth of his beer bottle. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Although maybe it wouldn’t translate well to card games.”

“Maybe someday, Cas,” Dean grinned, then patted the bed by his side. “Sammy! Come sit. Eat, drink, be merry!”

“We’re on a case, Dean,” Sam scolded. And I’m having trouble sharing lately. “What are you guys watching?”

“No idea.” Dean dragged out the ‘o’ and shrugged. “That’s not the point here, kiddo. The point is that you chat and you get friendly with the people on your team. Let loose, live a little. Celebrate the turn of the gruesome twosome into the, uh, fearsome threesome. Or something. I’m still working on that one.”

Sam twisted his mouth uncomfortably but took a seat and a long chug of beer. In fact, the chug seemed to be long enough to finish it in one swallow. Dean looked nonplussed, but it certainly made Sam feel better. “To the threesome!” he said, cracking open another beer and taking another glug. The buzz kicked in well enough and he set it aside, reaching instead for a paper plate and some chow mein. “So I was thinking -”

“Oh no you don’t. If it’s about the case I don’t want to hear about it tonight. I nearly lost the use of one of my feet today and if that’s not something to kill with alcohol I don’t know what is. Besides, you think too much.”

There was silence for a few moments as chicken balls and shrimp fried rice disappeared from their containers. Cas’ eyes sparkled in the dim lamplight as he spoke. “I for one admire your brain, Sam. I really do.” He shifted so that he could look between them more easily. “I often think that if you two had been born angels, you would have been the most admired lieutenants in God’s army.”

His eyes had grown misty and he set aside his beer to wipe his eyes. Dean paused, looked hesitantly towards Cas and then set his unfinished egg foo yung aside. He dragged the dark-haired man into a one-armed hug and pressed a hidden kiss to the top of his head.

“It’s gonna be okay, Cas. We’re still here alive and kicking and we’re not going anywhere. Sam, could you...?” It was a testament to their relationship that he didn’t need to finish the sentence. The younger Winchester finished his second (or was it third?) beer for the night and began to tidy up. He looked up at one point to find Dean smiling over at him, ruffling Cas’ hair as he stared off at a spot on the wall.

There was no spoken thank you but he could see it on his brother’s face and with that he forgot whatever he was worried about. As long as Dean could look at him that way, as long as Cas was safe and not in the clutches of demons or other angels? Sam could deal. Whatever it was, he could deal.

“So, are we staying here for awhile?” He had to ask. It was important to how comfortable Sam was allowed to get in a place, had been since he was six months old.

“I think we’ll be in the area a few days, yeah. Depends on how comfortable this bed is I guess.” Dean pressed the remote into Cas’ hand and swung his legs onto the floor. “You wanna put up some sigils?”

“Yeah, I think that could work. The better we’re able to keep Cas hidden, the better I’ll sleep you know?”

Just a nod and a pat on the shoulder later and Dean was checking the salt lines, knocking on the windows for sturdiness while Sam cleaned guns and sharpened knives. It was a fairy, whatever it was, so all of their weaponry needed to be switched over to their iron kit; he ticked off every possibility in his mind, unbuttoned his shirt and hung it over the chair. As he began to undo his jeans he saw green eyes following him, unblinking as he undressed. His eyebrow quirked in a silent question but Dean scrubbing his hands through his hair and down over his face was all the response he got.

“I’m gonna, uh, I’m gonna go take a shower. You play nice with Cas okay?”

Sam settled on the bed, taking the far right while Cas sat on the left. He used the space to stretch out his tired limbs, cramped from sitting in the Impala and then on the little metal folding chairs back at the festival. The bathroom door slammed and the sound of running water could be heard from beyond. Tried to think of something to say to the bleary-eyed angel sitting next to him.

“Your brother’s stressed, Sam.”

“Tell me what else is new.”

“He’s upset about whatever he was dreaming about last night.” Castiel’s gaze finally alit on his bedmate, serious as they came. “I’d like your permission to make sure he doesn’t have any more nightmares.”

“What are you going to do, Cas? Sedate him? ‘Cause that’s not what friends do to each other, much less family.” He shifted on top of the covers and became temporarily distracted by the Beverly Hills Cop theme. “This is what you chose to put on? You and my brother really are made for each other. Huh.”

“I’d like to point out that both you and Dean have sedated, beaten, tied up and otherwise abused each other on a variety of occasions to no lasting physical damage.” Sam stared at his friend, wondering what it would be like if Cas ever yawned or blinked or took showers or did anything normal. He certainly cut straight to the point, whatever it was. And if Sam felt naked and scrutinized in Cas’ presence, he couldn’t imagine how Dean felt about it. “Besides, I believe there’s one thing you keep forgetting.”

“And just what might that be?”

“However clumsily I may have managed it, it wasn’t just Dean that I raised from Perdition. I brought you out of Hell too, Sam.” Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back the heck up, this wasn’t how they spoke to each other - or so Sam thought until he realized he was answering for his absentee brother.

Discussing feelings was lower on Dean’s list of favourite things than swallowing nails. It took Sam a moment to remember that sometimes he actually liked talking about things rather than just stuffing them in the back of his battered psyche. “No, you’re right Cas. I was forgetting that. Thank you.”

Castiel frowned. “That’s not what I meant, and certainly not after all I’ve put you through, but Sam, I’m trying to say you’re important to me, too.”

“Oh.” This wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go; Sam wasn’t sure how it was supposed to go but this certainly wasn’t it. He reached for Cas’s hand and squeezed it softly, running his fingertips over the back of the other man’s knuckles. Dean had recently been holding that hand, maybe stroking it the same way. And then it dawned upon him: Cas was a bridge between the two Winchesters; he facilitated a closeness between them that they had always had but struggled to express to one another.

He laughed but it came out a high and reedy sound, a little more hysterical than he’d meant it. “You know, I love having you around Castiel. I really do.” Trust them to need someone even more socially inept than they were to make things work between them.

Dean came out to find them pressed up against one another ten minutes later, with Sam trying to explain to Castiel why Axel Foley’s boss was using so many curse words on the TV. If their proximity bothered him, he didn’t mention it, but then again he never did. “It’s late night and it was the eighties. They don’t have to bleep anything out, I guess.”

Dean rooted around in his bag for some clothes, heedless of being dressed only in a towel slung low around his waist. “Is that fuckin’ Foley?” he snickered, grabbing a Metallica t-shirt. Sam scooted back over to his third of the bed and tried to look away as the towel hit the floor. His brother really had a great ass, and that wasn’t something a guy was supposed to think at any time. Imagine what Dad would have said?  
 _Dad isn’t here_ , he reminded himself as he tried to calm the light foxtrot in his chest.

“Are you gonna put some clothes on any time soon?”

With the shirt and a pair of boxers still clutched in his hand, Dean stood and turned to face the other two. He was naked as the day he was born, just as unapologetic. Sam found himself having to stare at his brother’s devil trap tattoo instead of the heavy meat between his legs. He was salivating, embarrassed about being that turned on by a simple act of bravado and ready to throw something at Dean’s stupid head. “Pervert,” he grumbled. He didn’t look at Cas; he didn’t need to look at Cas to know what the other man was thinking.

“Hey Sammy, it’s a free country. You’re the one who’s looking.” Finally, _finally_ Dean relented and got into the clothes he’d picked out. The bed sank between them as he climbed up the center of the bed and settled between them, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder.

The alcohol from earlier had loosened him up to the point where he could be in their personal space, to let their legs press up against one another and not mind when Sam stretched an arm behind his head under the pretense that the muscles had cramped. He was even okay with it through the next commercial break when he finally burst out, “Cas, seriously man how can you wear an entire trench coat while sitting on our bed?”

Sam felt his throat tighten a little at the term ‘our bed’, but he’d grown up with Dean. ‘Our bed’ was whatever level of safety and comfort Dean was offering on a night (and it varied) but here was Cas too, and Castiel was somehow still very much within the limits of touch and attraction that Dean and he had learned to ignore in each other. Or that Sam had learned to ignore, anyway.

His big brother was the king of mixed signals, sometimes cuddly and needy and other times liable to throw a punch at the merest hint of a hug. Sam took what he could get.


	7. Chapter 7

**Dean**

There was something about the term caoineag (khoonyak? who could pronounce that, anyway?) that really stuck in his brain. Something that Bobby had once said, or was it Dad? Stupid fairies. They were one of his very least things to have to deal with after that incident with the microwave. He looked down at his hands, spinning the ring on his finger while his brother’s hands stroked through his hair. Sam thought he was being casual, but he rarely got so close unless he’d had too much to drink or thought he could get away with it.

Cas sank onto the bed again, now dressed in a Guns n’ Roses shirt via Dean and boxers and socks courtesy of Jimmy Novak’s wife, by the looks of it. The only time he’d ever seen a man look less comfortable was when this guy in Dallas who had come out of a cursed daze to discover he’d been dating his own mom for the past six months. Not that Dean was the poster boy for non-incestuous relations.

Dean needed more beer, if only to get out of this crap going round and round in his head. Needed to get out the weird replay of the Celtic harp that was being plucked in the back of his mind, needed to get the smell of angel out of his nostrils and get away from the shiver that came when Sammy tickled the nape of his neck. What had seemed like backing Cas’ choice of room up earlier was now coming back to bite him in the ass and it was all he could do to stop from fidgeting until bedtime.

“Night, fellas,” he murmured into the darkness as Cas switched off the lamp. He preferred sleeping on his face, but would take his right side in a pinch. Three giant dudes in a king-sized bed turned out to be a minor pinch. Dean felt under his pillow for his knife, then closed his eyes. Slinking around his waist to spread flat across his stomach was his brother’s hand. His eyes snapped open, adjusting to the darkness where he could make out Cas watching him intently. He breathed heavily through his nose, fighting off the claustrophobia that ensued. He didn’t move, but neither did his brother’s hand.

Well, it was a small bed for a gigantor like Sam, he supposed. He could let the hand stay there and no one would know except for Cas, who was definitely aware if the way he was staring was anything to go by. In Dean’s twisted sense of fairness that made him responsible somehow, as if giving a piece of himself to Sam but not to Cas was something to feel guilty over. That was why he nudged his fingers forward and curled them around the sleepless angel, ignoring the knowledge that Cas would stay and watch them like that all night. No, appreciating that knowledge if he was completely honest because hell, Winchesters didn’t get to have nice things like that.

Sam was snoring in no time, little snuffling sounds right in his ear. Dean yawned and held Cas’ gaze, then tugged him forward a little. Just so that their winged wonder couldn’t steal all the blankets in the night (that was Sam’s job).

Cas was close enough that Dean could feel his breath against his lips, which struck him as strange because it didn’t smell of anything. Even babies smelled of something, didn’t they? He squeezed the fingers tighter in his hand and snuggled up against the fingers splayed over his belly button, then went to sleep and dreamed of caoineags.

No, it wasn’t a caoineag, it was whatever that old hag was again, this time knelt by the river with her back to him. She had no cloak and her massive, dragging breasts were slung over her shoulders and out of the way of her washing; Dean was so mesmerized, so horrified, that for a moment he didn’t realise he was in Purgatory again.

“I don’t understand why I’m here and not in Hell if I’m gonna be having nightmares like this,” he muttered to himself. The old woman’s mournful humming could be heard above the rushing of the river as she scrubbed and scrubbed. Where was Cas?

“Castiel isn’t here,” said a voice from his side. He never forgot that voice no matter how much time passed. It haunted his waking moments just as often as his dreams. It was the voice that monsters used when they wanted to try and break him. “He’s not gonna be here, you got that son?”

Dean’s jaw clenched. “Yes sir.”

“You should have left him here,” His father said from somewhere on the edge of his periphery. “He was an abomination. There’s a reason his own kind want to kill him.”

“No sir,” he answered tightly. “He deserves a chance at redemption, sir. A man deserves to take responsibility for his mistakes.”

“If he was a man, maybe, but when have we ever done that for demons?” A hard hand clamped down on his shoulder and Dean’s stomach churned. “You’ve never been able to do what it takes when it comes to demons, have you? Never listened to what I said about your brother, sure won’t listen to anything I say ‘bout the amazing Castiel.”

“Not demons - family,” came the murmured reply. He was watching the ripples on the water, that grey sunlight painting streaks of white along its surface. The washer woman was humming names like Mary Thorpe and Daniel Paterson in an endless cycle. He cautiously brushed his fingers over the waistband of his jeans, feeling for his knife. In that moment he wasn’t quite sure who of their party of three he meant to stab. “But wait - demons? Cas is an angel!”

“Is he up in Heaven with his other little halo-wearing buddies? No, he’s downstairs with you two boys, messin’ things up for the both of you. In my books that means he’s fallen and that means he needs to be put down.”

“Oh, like you were ever Mr. Innocent! The shit you put Sammy an’ I through? The things you tortured for information and proclaimed it all fine and dandy ‘cause monsters didn’t count? What about the times you were possessed, Dad? What about the times you made mistakes?” And God knew there had been many of those.

“You’ve gone soft like your little brother. I told you to take care of him and what did you do? You let him run off to Stanford and then you started thinking about creepin’ into his bed! Couldn’t even put him down when he was so hopped up on demon blood he didn’t know which way was up! Couldn’t let him go even when he didn’t have a soul!”

John stepped away and walked towards the hag, whispering something in her ear. She paused in her washing, then nodded and carried on. Her scraggly grey hair had caught on the breeze and was floating in little wisps, alighting on her gnarled forearms and the dappled purple-grey of her ample chest. Dean had to swallow back the bile that arose in his throat.

“You’re right, I would never let him go. Never. Just like I wouldn’t ever let Cas go.”

“You let me go. You disobey me every single day, Dean.”

“Maybe, but you’re not alive. You don’t get to make those choices anymore - I’m head of the family. I think I’ve been head of the family half my life, you dick, an’ I -”

John’s face crumpled. “Dean, how can you talk to your own father like that? Didn’t I raise you the best I could? Didn’t I raise you better than this?”

 _No_ , Dean thought bitterly, _you totally didn’_ t. “Yes sir,” he gritted out, abandoning the tirade that had been bubbling up inside of him. “Daddy’s little soldier reporting for duty, sir.”

The disappointment on John’s face twisted into a sardonic grin. “You’re a sick little puppy, Dean, so wrapped up in your own unnatural desires that you can’t see what’s right in front of you.” His eyes flashed yellow and Dean let out a shout, finally whipping out his knife.

“No! Yellow eyes is dead!”

“Maybe, but not in your heart. You never could let go of things. That’s what I’ve been telling you this whole time.” The thing wearing his father’s face sidled closer, palms out in truce. Dean’s shaking hands jabbed the knife in his direction, warning him to stay away. “You can’t focus anymore under all the guilt and crap you’ve piled up for yourself and that’s why the --”

What was that? Some kind of crazy foreign word that he couldn’t make out. Ben what what? “Is gonna get you. And she’s gonna wrap you up in a little death shroud with your name on it and then it’ll Sam and Castiel’s turn to forget about you. Imagine how quickly that would happen? I doubt it’d even take a day.”

Dean swiped wildly at his father with his favourite hunting knife, but the old man was wiley and ducked out of the way. “I’ll never forgive you,” he growled, unsure of what he was even trying to say. It didn’t even feel like the two of them were having the same conversation anymore. “It was MY LIFE!”

“Fine! Be that depraved disappointment I tried so hard to raise you not to be, but don’t you come back here and ask for forgiveness. You choose your path, son, and if you don’t choose the path that leads to me then I don’t wanna see your face anymore. You hear me? I’m done with you if you choose this.”

Anger was roiling in his veins and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes as Sam and Cas shook him awake. He coughed and slapped himself on the chest until the panic paralysing him had released and then squeezed an arm around both of the men who were hovering over him in concern.

“This is so messed up,” he muttered, burying his face in Sam’s neck while he pulled Cas’ face close against his own. He ran his fingers fitfully through the dark curls with his right hand and wiped his eyes on Sam’s t-shirt so no one would have to know. “I don’t know what I would do without you guys. I have no idea.”

“You could, I dunno, live a normal life?” Sam joked weakly, voice tinged with distress. The lamp went on by itself (no, not by itself - Cas) and he could make out more of their exhausted, worried faces. He thought he should say something. He owed them that much.

“Well Sammy, you always knew I would choose you over Dad in a heartbeat,” he said grimly, more to himself than anything else. “Turns out I’d choose Cas over him too.” And with that he struggled from the bed, disentangling himself to splash some water over his face and brush his teeth again even though he hadn’t thrown up.

There were low voices coming from the other room, once again proving that his brother and his guardian angel were able to communicate just fine without him. They’d get along well enough if he was gone, which was comforting enough because not a second went by in the day that he wasn’t worried about them both, but how long would it take for them to forget him if it ever came to that?

He shook the ghost of his father free from his thoughts. “ ‘Time is it?”

“Little after four,” came Sam’s voice from the bedroom. “You wanna get some more sleep?”

“Nah,” he called, ignoring the yawn that was fighting its way up his throat. “I wanna get this sucker ganked and get the hell out of here.”

“Dean,” his brother began as began as he reentered the room.

“Dean,” said Cas at almost the same time. He blinked at both of them, throwing up his hands as if to say what do you want from me?

In return his only thoughts were, _I want to kiss you, I want to kiss both of you. I wanna give up all my problems in you, and you too. I don’t wanna carry the burden of things lost and things I’ll never have for even one minute more. I can’t take this._

Instead he sat down at the Formica-covered half-desk sticking out of the wall and booted up the laptop. “Seriously guys, I think I’ve got something on this. In my dream the old lady was called a ben something.” He hammered it in, attacking the keyboard with a little too much force.

“Try B-E-A-N. Bean means woman in Gaelic,” Cas offered. He drew closer, draping himself over Dean’s shoulder to get a better look. Sam looked towards them, considering, and then went to consolidate the various food stuffs they’d left out the night before into something they could take with them.

“Bean sidhe is banshee, so - here it is! Here she is, the Bean Nighe. Ben nai?”

“It’s pronounced ben nee-yuh.”

“Ben whatever. I don’t care as long as she gets gone. It’s all here - the shrouds, the one nostril, the teeth, those gross titties. Sam, close that moo shu pork. I’m gonna be sick.”

Cas had squished himself in even closer so that he was nearly on Dean’s lap. He commandeered the keyboard and began to scroll, clicking and cross-referencing in ways that only Sam had ever managed. From below the unhappy gurgling of his stomach, Mr. Happy was taking a mild interest and Dean could barely stop from rolling his eyes. “It says if you suckle from her teat you can claim to be her foster child and get her to grant wishes.”

“Uh, that would be a reservation for three for a party of no, Cas,” Dean said, ducking his chin out of the way of back of the angel’s head. “What else does it say?”

“That if she catches you trying to do it you’ll have to join her in her washing.”

“What, forever?”

“Well, no. I really don’t think that would be a plausible outcome, because whoever wrings out the cloth in the same direction as her will have their arms ripped off.”

Sam stopped mid-pack and strode over to them. Now all three were crowded around a tiny computer screen and Cas really was sitting on Dean’s lap without apology. “That explains what happened to the Angus kid. Sounds like Cas is right.”

“So how do we get rid of her? If we have to recite any spells in Scots Gaelic I shotgun it isn’t gonna be me.”

“Aw, poor Dean,” Sam grinned, then wrapped his arms around his brother’s chest in a bear hug from behind.

“Come on guys, I’m not some kind of freakin’ toy! Paws off!”


	8. Chapter 8

**George**

The temperature had dropped overnight from 65 to 30 and wasn’t that just a kick in the pants. George Magoon pressed his fists over his eyes in an attempt to force the sleep from them, but shivered instead and wished very much that he didn’t have to be wearing these stupid swamp boots.

Of course old Judy Spencer had put in a complaint about the water quality in the waters just off her property. Everyone and their brother knew that their section of the Shetucket River was as clean as she got, but in a small town like theirs once a person got of a certain age she had to find ways to keep herself relevant. “Friggin’ freezing out here,” he grumbled, pulling his flannel tighter across his round belly.

“I think it’s mad beautiful,” said Will Nelson, for whom ‘under thirty’ described age, salary and IQ all in one. “Look at the grey of the sky! Listen to the birds chirping! It’s gonna be a great fall in Scotland, I can just feel it.”

“Let’s just get through this so I can get back to my warm office and a cup of hot chocolate. Haven’t even had my coffee yet this morning.”

“Dude, too much coffee isn’t good for you. I think that’s why you had those heart problems last fall.” He trudged ahead through the long dew-covered grasses that that edged the swamp. It wasn’t that large, but it was large enough that the clumps of grass sticking out of it were overgrown and had wilted sideways like they were tired of life but couldn’t quite make it back into the mire from which they’d came.

“I appreciate the concern,” said George in a voice that suggested anything but. “Now can we get our damn water samples?”

“Hey, whoa. Fine. No need to be such a grump, alright? Just let me grab my kit.”

So Half-wit Will headed back to the car they’d parked about a hundred feet away and he’d better be handling it right because those things had cost the community nearly five hundred dollars. Was testing swamp water at the behest of an old fogey George’s true calling in life?

He shivered and scowled at the area, at the naked trees that had shed their leaves early and stood there in the cold and wet like pitiful prisoners begging for asylum. A different shape, a vaguely triangular lump, came into view and he started as he noticed a figure on the other side of the swamp. He hadn’t even realized it wasn’t a tree stump until it started moving. It was an area no one should have been able to get to unless - unless what? They’d floated across?

“Will!” he hissed, gesturing sharply with his chin for his partner to hurry up. “There’s someone over there. Look.”

“Ohhh no, it is way too early for that kind of thing. Look, I told you I was sorry for hitting on your daughter at the 4th of July barbecue and I haven’t gone near her since. Can’t we let bygones be bygones?”

“And I told you I didn’t think that hovering near her shoulder while she hung out with her friends counted because she didn’t even notice you were there. I’m serious, look across the water. There’s something in green but I can’t make it out with my danged eyesight. That’s a person, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s like an old woman or something. She’s wearing a green cloak.”

A creeping, awful feeling came over George then. He’d heard of this sort of thing back in stories from his grandfather and now it was back. Without a doubt he knew right at that moment that this was what had been getting the kids coming home from school and band practice. Whatever it was, it was back. “Is - is she...can you see her face?”

“Kinda. She’s pretty, um,” Will paused, searching for a kinder word. He was always that guy, for all of his other faults. “Wisened, maybe?”

“Will, I want you to run for the car right now. Just run, don’t ask any questions and don’t even bother with the water samples.”

“But -”

“Get in the damn car, Will, or we’re both gonna die.”

Well holy shit. The washerwoman at the ford was after them and George’s short, fat legs couldn’t carry him away fast enough. He glanced over his shoulder and he saw her traveling the edge of the swamp, passing through trees like they were gossamer thread. She was drawing closer and closer as he threw the door open and stuffed himself inside.

He didn’t even have time to care that Will was driving and Will was never allowed to drive. All George was concerned with was jamming the seat belt buckle home and getting their little silver Honda Accord the hell out of there. “Drive,” he shouted hoarsely. “Drive! Come on, Will, she’s gaining on us!”

  
He twisted around as fully as he could as Will gunned the poor little import out of there but the hideous woman hadn’t left the water’s edge and suddenly George could hear his grandfather telling him about the bean nighe and how she was doomed to wash clothes until Judgment Day. Ghosts of women who’d died in childbirth or something - or were they fairies? He’d never been good at folklore. He’d gotten a B on his assignment on Prometheus in eighth grade.

“What the f-fudge was that?” asked Will, whom George now discovered had tears streaming down his boyish cheeks. “What the fluffing fudge was that?”

“It was a washerwoman, boy. They’re doomed to wash the shrouds of the dead or their underwear or something like that, but they can’t actually cross water or stray from it.” And that’s why she’d been going along the edge, he realized. Maybe he wasn’t that bad at mythology after all.

“Why is it here? Why is it in Scotland? What’s it doing? Is that what killed those kids? Oh god it was, wasn’t it? Oh god it ripped the arms off of a little boy I think I’m going to be sick let’s just pull over I’m going to be sick oh god --”

“Get it together, man.” George sighed and pinched his nose together. Where were they even driving, anyway? “Let’s just head back to the office -”

“I was thinking of driving to like, Mexico maybe. Arizona? Not much water out there, I heard it’s all desert.” He might have been serious, knowing Will Nelson.

“We’re going to the office,” George insisted, “And then we’re going to call a town meeting because this is a problem we have to deal with. Also I need my coffee if I’m going to deal with any of this. ‘S far too early. Far, far too early.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Sam**

They were up and out of the room even faster than usual since Dean was no longer interested in sleeping. It was going to have to come to a head sooner or later, Sam knew that much, and sure usually their heart to hearts didn’t involve Cas but you know what? Maybe they should for once. Maybe someone else could help relieve the weight of the world that his brother insisted on carrying day after day, year after year. The proverbial fan was due for a hitting and when that happened, Sam would be right by his side to make things all better again. That was what they did for each other.

These were the things Sam was thinking as he tossed his bag into the trunk. Dean was shoveling leftover Chinese food into his mouth to gain energy from the lack of rest but also because he ‘didn’t want to stink up his baby’.

Cas was wiping down evidence of their stay, still wearing the t-shirt he’d gone to bed in the night before. The trench coat wanted to be relegated to the trunk but, as Dean had helpfully pointed out, the temperature had sunk like a hot bullet through ice overnight and no person not wishing to attract attention could walk around without a coat on.

“We’ll get you something else next time we get a windfall, Cas,” Dean said with his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk’s. “Maybe a cool leather jacket like mine or a lame one like Sam’s?”

“That would be nice,” the angel mused, while Sam shook his head in mild confusion. Which…? Glancing between the other two and seeing no answer in sight, he grabbed his laptop and headed for the front seat.

Scotland would have been an idyllic place if not for the murderous fairies, Sam thought as they headed back towards the tiny town. It was country, but it was cute country with white clapboard siding as far as the eye could see and honest-to-goodness white picket fences. The foliage had begun to brown in the grip of autumn’s chill, but it was the kind of place where he would have loved to have grown up.

A few of the towns they’d spent time in over the years actually had looked like Scotland and Sam could recall Dean (and sometimes Dad) driving him to school on crisp mornings like the one they were currently embarking on. He remembered being a smaller person, scrawny, walking down the sides of the road with his backpack slung on one shoulder and having the Impala rumble up next to him with white plumes of exhaust coming out the back, lingering in the cold air. “Hop in, grumpy,” his brother had said. “Just you and me tonight, how does a dinner of mac n’ cheese out of a box and some white birch soda sound?”

“Have we got any apples?” he’d asked, because sometimes Dean would forget that Sam was still a growing boy and needed vitamins and minerals, that his bones sometimes hurt and he got cold too easily. And so Dean had gotten him apples.

He looked in the rear view mirror and saw Cas sitting there, silent as the grave again with his hands pointed towards his lap and his eyes directed out the window. There was a sadness in his gaze that Sam found it hard to ignore and if it was bothering him, it was eating Dean alive.

“Hey Cas, are you okay back there?” There was a grunt but no indication either way, not really. “You know, when Dean and I were kids we lived in an area similar to here called Mystic. I think our Dad was hunting a rawhead -”

“According to your father’s diary, that is an Irish boogeyman is it not? Bogeyman?”

“Right. Hey yeah, right, there are a lot of Celtic monsters in this area aren’t there?”

Dean snorted. “Bet they’ve been here hundreds of years. Maybe came over with the original settlers to the area.”

Sam blinked and nodded, running with the idea. Of course! The origins of the town might be tied to the bean nighe, might lead them to the person who had summoned the damn thing so that they could send it back where it came from. Fairies, after all, were banish-able but couldn’t be killed as far as they knew. “So back to my story,” he said as he googled furiously, “Sometimes on cold days like this Dean and I would breathe against the window and write our names in the condensation. You ever done something like that?”

“No,” said Cas with an unspoken ‘but’ - what came after the ‘but’, Sam had no idea.

“I remember that!” Dean grinned. “Dad didn’t even say anything about the smudge marks on the windows afterwards. He just - uh, hey fellas? What the hell is this?”

In front of their car people were pouring out of their darling homes and into the road, heading all in the same direction. It was like a scene out of village of the damned, or else there’d been an earthquake the out-of-towners somehow hadn’t felt and everyone was being evacuated. Cas rolled down the back window and leaned out as they pulled up through the middle of this long queue, calling, “Excuse me!”

A man in his mid-thirties leaned over as the car slowed down unheeded by the rest of the worried faces hurrying along. “You headed to the emergency town hall meeting?”

“Sorry, we were over in Chaplin this morning. What happened?”

“Dunno. We’re about to find out. Maybe you should park and walk - the streets are pretty full of people right now.”

“Thanks but no thanks,” Dean called out the window. “I’m not leaving Baby anywhere farther than fifty feet from us in this place, especially if there’s some kind of emergency happening.”

The man raised a dark, bushy eyebrow. “Not from around here are you? I’m John Comasco.” He shoved a hand through the window and shook Cas’ hand roughly, smiling as the angel introduced himself as Angus Young.

“Not from around here and named after a guy from AC/DC? Which one of you is Bon Scott?”

A round of awkward laughter arose from that, but with no clear answer John shrugged and made his way along the road. As soon as the window was up Dean said, “I told you so! I totally told you! Someone owes me a beer.”

Sam’s eyes scanned the flock of people heading into the tiny town hall. Red noses peeked over top of hand knit scarves and most had gloves on or their hands shoved in their pockets as far as they would go. If this was what the approaching winter was going to look like, he really hoped their next case would take them south. “What do you think we should do? Should we just go in there?”

“Say we forgot some contact information for our report. Act stupid. We’ll be fine.” Dean was already unbuckling his seat belt. His legs were on the ground before Castiel suggested he wasn’t coming.

“If the entire town is in there I have an excellent opportunity to locate the creature,” he said gruffly. “I think it’s better this way.”

Sam’s mouth fell open. “Cas, if you go hunting around you might put yourself on the angel radar and then they’ll find you. You can’t just do that!”

“And what are we to do in the meantime, watch other people die? This would be a lot faster and more effective. I think you’ll find I’m being very reasonable here.”

Dean pulled open the back door and knelt down to drag Castiel out by his shoulder. “Come on, Feathers. There’s no way you’re going off on your own. Besides, they’ve seen us as a threesome before. They might get suspicious if one of us is suddenly missing.”

Sam felt something inside himself twitch, like a dog’s ears perking up at the mention of a treat. He swallowed uncomfortably and pushed away thoughts of threesomes. Why was Dean always referring to the three of them that way, anyway?

Cas was reluctantly extracted from the vehicle and began immediately to smooth down his Guns ‘n’ Roses shirt. Not that anything on him was ever more rumpled or out of place than the day he’d first introduced himself to the Winchesters.

“We don’t want to meet the bean nighe yet anyway,” Sam pointed out. His breath formed little clouds in the frozen air. “With any luck we can figure out who’s responsible for her appearance and get him to send her back where she came from.”

“Shh,” Dean hissed, waving a hand dismissively at them. “We’re harp judges, remember. Harp judges.”

They wouldn’t have to have been, Sam thought as they pulled open the metal door. He had a vague memory of a hundred similar doors being opened at schools around the country. He had a vague memory of Dad pulling them open and ushering Dean and him in to be registered yet again. He thought of the way that Dean had taken it all in stride, had never cried whenever they had to leave. Thought of the way that Dean had only ever thought of Sam in those days and how that had never changed.

Cas followed them up the center aisle of an auditorium’s worth of folding chairs, settling himself to the right of Sam, while Dean’s hand rested on the back of his little brother’s chair from the left. Castiel’s blunt fingernails brushed against the back of Sam’s hand and he shivered a little, turning towards Dean to give him a here-goes-nothing kind of smile.

“Enjoying your stay in town?” came a voice from behind them. Sam turned around to greet her but didn’t recognize the soft-faced, round little woman who must have been at least fifty. She had a knit cardigan on and a gold cross around her neck.

“Martha, very nice to see you again.” Cas reached back to shake her hand. “I’m sure you remember my colleagues Brian and -”

“Cliff,” Sam said, reaching out to shake her hand. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Martha of Martha’s Herb Garden. Your co-workers were kind enough to accuse me of witchcraft last we met.” She smiled but there was sharpness behind her eyes that suggested she hadn’t yet forgiven them.

“That was just a misunderstanding, ma’am.” Dean hurried to smooth things over. “In a town with such a rich Celtic history one can never be too sure.”

“True enough, this town’s had its fair share of interesting history ever since it was founded back in about 1700. Lots of spooky legends that come out around Hallowe’en, I suppose.” She leaned back to whisper something in her husband’s ear and to gesture at a woman in bright red a few rows away on a diagonal. Sam had a feeling it wasn’t the pleasant sort of gossip.

“And uh, just how might we find out more about something like that? Very interested in the history of Scottish America of course,” Sam said with an awkward chuckle. “Is there a library?”

“Oh no, you don’t even need to bother with that. Some of the townsfolk have actually traced their family trees back to those very first settlers that separated Scotland from Windham in general. There’s one now!”

The three men followed her finger to the man taking the stage, no other than George Magoon from the Highland Festival. He was speaking hurriedly under his breath to his daughter and accompanied on one side by a pale-faced young man who stood with his hands clasped behind his back, eyes staring into some middle distance well above the crowd.

There was no time to reply as George chose that moment to take the grey podium sat upon the stage. It was sturdy but artless, no doubt locally built. Scotland seemed the sort of town that kept to its own and didn’t take kindly to outsiders. _In Connecticut of all places_? Sam thought as he leaned forward to listen.

He hooked a pinky around one of Cas’ and pressed his knuckles against Dean’s on the other side. The tug-of-war between stress over the bean nighe and sheer contentment at being with his two favorite people, two of the only people he had left, was making him light-headed.


	10. Chapter 10

**Castiel**

It would have been a lot easier if they’d just let him take an angel blade to the bean nighe. She would put up a good fight, but he was convinced that as a Seraph he could remove her without much difficulty. And if he could do that, the Winchesters would be safe and the townspeople who surrounded him would never have to worry about walking near water again. Unless they tripped and fell in. Or slipped in a bathtub. He scrunched his eyebrows together and focused on the man speaking up at the front. George.

“I have an announcement to make,” he rasped, sounding flustered. He mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief from out of his button-up sweater vest. “I don’t think there’s a single one of you who don’t know me and you know that I don’t ever make something out of nothing, so try as best you can to bear with me through this.”

The townspeople exchanged worried glances but remained silent. This man was definitely their leader, whatever ‘selectmen committee’ they claimed to have. Castiel had seen the very same looks on members of his garrison when he’d asked them time and again to trust him, to believe in him. Look where that had gotten them.

“This morning, Will Nelson and I were checking out the swamp just off of Judy Spencer’s property when we saw, well - come here, Will. Tell them what you saw.” He draped an arm over the younger man’s shoulder and with Cas’ preternatural eyesight he could see a minute shaking, a trembling all over as Will began to speak.

“I-I-I-I saw. I saw, um. A thing, a figure in the trees. I saw an old woman, and she was coming towards us. She was floating! Oh god help us, she was floating!” And he burst into the tears that had been hiding just below the surface for as long as it had taken to fill up the auditorium. George’s daughter, Abby her name was, escorted him away and patted his shoulder.

“Will’s right,” said George as he retook the stand. “I saw it just as well as he did. It was a wraith, a washer woman! I know we were skeptical when Mary Allen spoke of it the night she died, but there’s no denying it’s been brought back somehow.”

“Wraith’s not the same thing as a washer woman,” Dean grumbled loudly enough that half the row turned to look at him. Cas ignored it and continued to watch the people on the stage, particularly for any signs of deception from George.

“As some of you may recall the last time the washer woman was here in the 1950s and she took the lives of some twelve residents before vanishing. This time we’ve lost four and we can’t allow this to continue. We’ve got to band together and figure this out.”

John Comasco from the drive up to the town hall stood and folded his arms across his chest. “And why should we believe that some supernatural monster is suddenly after us all? Daniel Paterson died from a car accident, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary about that except for bad driving!”

“Hey! That was my cousin driving there,” called an unseen speaker from the audience. “He’s never ever had a parking ticket, said the kid just flew at the car out of nowhere.”

“Why’s it back now?” asked someone else. “Why should we suddenly believe ourselves targets of some three hundred year old curse?”

“Not a curse,” murmured Sam under his breath, quietly enough that perhaps even Dean couldn’t hear it. “A summoning spell.”

The residents of Scotland, Connecticut were immediately up in arms. “If you don’t believe me,” George spoke into the microphone, “Believe the bodies piling up! These are our children and our friends we’re talking about! In our last newsletter one resident died of old age - three kids and a young mother dying over the course of a week isn’t something that happens around here!”

Some people were suggesting bear attacks or the need for better road safety signs. Perhaps the elementary school needed a nurse to come in and check everyone out, or some of the local police to give a presentation on staying safe. Staying away from the waterways.

Castiel marveled at the human ability to remain ignorant of facts even as those facts stared them in the face. Angels were just as guilty of it, though. God himself must know how stupid and pig-headed Castiel could be.

“Now listen here! If you look in the archives -” George was shouting at this point. He’d completely lost control of his audience as they began to argue, the line between believers and skeptics tugged back and forth until it looked like it might come to blows. “If you look in the archives!”

“Why should we look in the archives when y’all won’t even refurbish the angel statue in the cemetery? Shows how much we give a damn about our history these days!” The voice was old and ornery, the owner somehow possessed of lungs strong enough to be heard over the rest of the crowd. Abby came to stand by her father, leaving Will Nelson on yet another folding chair placed towards the back of the stage.

“That’s exactly why this is happening!” cried another senior citizen. “We aren’t honouring our history as we should!”

Castiel knew the exact moment it happened. By some angelic power he’d been possessed of since birth, he knew the very moment when a life snuffed out in his vicinity. He felt the quiet whoosh of a soul departing and leapt from his seat, craning his neck to see the stage. “He’s gone,” he said mostly to himself as he began to press through the throng.

Elbows and bodies with no other place to go fought him every step of the way but as he climbed onto the raised platform, eyes finally began to follow. He gently sidestepped the podium and its microphone and knelt by the slumped figure of Will Nelson, who had died quietly and suddenly without a single person noticing.

“Angus!” Dean called from the crowd. “Angus!”

He ignored the call and hefted the newly belated onto his shoulders. “We need to get this man to a hospital,” he said.

“Is he -?” began Sam. His mouth was twisted into the concerned frown that seemed more natural to him than smiling these days.

“He’s dead,” Castiel admitted. “But we need to find out what’s done this to him.”

“Hey! You can’t just - is that Will? Is Will dead?” A woman’s voice took a turn for the hysterical as she rushed the stage. A chorus of horrified agreement took place just before a half dozen of them climbed onto the stage and yanked Will from his grasp.  The body hit the floor with a dull thud; an empty thud. Those still standing on the floor froze in abject terror.

“Oh my god, Will Nelson’s dead!” someone yelled. “He died right in front of us all!”

“It was the witch!”

“Washer woman,” Dean corrected loudly, and with a grimace.

“I thought you guys were ‘harp judges’,” George said menacingly, making air quotes at the last words. “Who are you really?”

“Just here to help, sir. I promise you that,” Sam said. Next to Castiel, someone was attempting to give Will CPR to no avail. Cas stayed the kindly middle-aged woman’s hand.

“It won’t work,” said the angel, pressing two fingers to the man's chest to check for a soul. “He died instantly.”

“And just how would you know something like that?” demanded Abby. She had gone from eye-catching dancer to her father’s daughter in a split second. Cas stared at her, unsure of how to answer. He glanced towards Dean.

“It’s better if you don’t know," the elder Winchester said. "Look, the more you argue the less time we have to catch this bit - this bad person." He glanced warily at the old men and women in the audience, some still seated with their arms folded over their extensive bellies.

"Oh no, I think you've done enough already! Harp judges or no, you're not welcome in Scotland anymore!"

“I hardly think any of you would be able to stop these men from going where they’re needed,” Castiel said. It was a matter of fact, both in his mind and probably in the laws of the universe.

“Angus,” Sam hissed, “You’re going to get us arrested.”

“I would come and retrieve you if that were to happen.”

A collective gasp arose from the crowd, who were now of the opinion that they were in the presence of great criminals which, if Castiel was completely honest, was not untrue either. Without another word he was manhandled out of the building by Dean and to a lesser extent Sam, bundled back into his backseat and had the door closed on him as the Winchesters spoke hurriedly outside.

As though he couldn’t hear every word they said and every beat of their living hearts. As if he didn’t hear the blood rushing through their veins and the air leaving their lungs, and as if Castiel wasn’t terrified in microseconds every time that happened in case the air didn’t go back in.

They were discussing a plan and he was supposed to be a part of it, but they were debating whether or not to try and sneak into the library now that they were unlikely to get the history by word of mouth from the locals. Dean was arguing urgency, saying that the bean nighe had already racked up five bodies, while Sam was shaking his head and insisting that they be cautious and methodical.

It was a very good balance; the reason they were such a lethal team. Cas remembered his head - his all of him - exploding at the end of days for those two boys. He drummed his fingers against his pant leg.

“If you want to find records of ancestry, you need look no further than a tomb,” he announced as they landed heavily on their familiar seats. “I’m sure the oldest family names are represented there.”

Both brothers looked over their shoulders at him, unblinking. “Holy shit, Cas is right,” said Dean. “I knew there was a reason we kept him around.”

“I thought it might because I have the power of healing in case either of you is grievously harmed,” the backseat passenger said flatly.

“No Cas, no...well, yes, but it’s not like that. And you’re right,” Sam said, his eyebrows rising high against his forehead in a distinctive show of concern. “We should be looking at the cemetery right now. It didn’t even occur to me without a body to be searching for.”

“Good work, man. Seriously.”

“Does that mean it’s going to be my turn to sit in the front seat again soon?” Cas asked hopefully.

“No.” However different the Winchester brothers were, they were certainly in sync on some things.

 

 

The old part of the cemetery was about a mile south of the main section and came into view under a cloudy grey sky that threatened rain, peeking out from behind trees half stripped of their orange and brown leaves. A low stone fence that appeared to have been maintained in the style of centuries past lined the perimeter of the smallish sanctuary as it extended up a mild incline, row upon row of grey slabs stuck in the ground at strange angles.

Almost all of them were stained and streaked with black or white and some were too tiny for anything more than initials to be written on them. Dean pulled the car along the side of the road, parking it under a low-hanging tree to keep things inconspicuous but insisted on pulling in with his head out the window to make sure that none of the branches were able to scratch the roof.

There was a little rusted gate barely holding together at the entrance, one easily hopped (the wall itself was easy to bypass, come to think of it) and a little row of uneven steps leading up to the grass behind it. Dean took one look at it and turned to Sam, saying, “You had your tetanus shot lately? ‘Cause I sure haven’t.”

He stepped away and then propelled himself over the wall with one foot, followed soon after by his younger brother. Castiel took another look at the gate, pushed it open and walked up the steps to join them. There was a need, in places made sacred like the one they were in, to call upon the dead by the door where possible. Perhaps naively he chose to honor that which people created in order to honor his Father. Maybe someday he would grow out of it.

“Keep quiet guys,” Dean called in a low voice. “If anyone shows up here that was just at that town hall meeting we might have to haul ass.”

“What did you think of that dead guy?” Sam whispered back. “He just keeled over out of nowhere. I really don’t like the idea of things that can just steal the life right out of us being, well, in existence. I wanna get this fairy off of our asses and get back to things that have to physically attack us instead.”

“I would bring you back if anything happened to you,” Castiel said for what he felt like the hundredth time that day. His fists were clenched in his pockets.

“Cas, you don’t have to do that. I mean, you have done that. You’ve done that for us more than enough times,” Sam answered, slinging an arm around his shoulder. Dean moved closer for a one-armed hug on the other side and his aftershave, something woody with a herbal edge that mingled and jarred against the spicy, clean smell coming from his brother. Castiel was pretty certain he had an erection. He forged on.

“I mean to say - and guys, at this point I really must insist you listen to me - that I would bring you both back from wherever you go, whenever that happens. I love you both very much. I would do anything for you two.”

Dean shifted, stuck in limbo between fleeing and moving closer. He settled for squeezing Cas’ side and nuzzling his face against the shoulder of his trench coat. “Thank you,” he said with a voice gone all gravely. “I uh, yeah. Same.”

Sam shot Dean a look and pressed a kiss into Castiel’s hair that made him tingle somewhere low, maybe near his toes. They wanted to curl up in his black oxfords. “What my brother is trying to say is that we love you too Cas.”

There was a clearing of the throat and a pulling apart before Dean managed to finally say gruffly, “We can hug it out and have a slumber party later, but first we’ve gotta find the older of this zombie apocalypse waiting to happen.”

“Charlotte Allen, died 1875 - that’s pretty old isn’t it?” asked Sam. He was folded nearly in half, bent as he was to peer at the graves.

“Abner Webb, 1848 is a little older than that. Still, the place was founded in a time considered way back when even when this fella died according to that church lady, so we should be trying to find as old as it gets. I’m thinking first settlers if we can swing it.” Dean moved sideways, scanning the gravestones hastily like he expected the hag to be upon them any moment. Thankfully, cemeteries did not tend to be built close to water. They were safe from the supernatural for the moment.

“1772? An infant without a name,” Castiel said as he ran his fingers over the degraded letters of the tiny marker. “Again, the Allen family. There seem to be quite a few of them here.”

“Bunch of Bakers too - here’s one from 1791.” That was Sam again. “The thing is, Baker isn’t exactly a name that screams Scottish to me. If the bean nighe was summoned by one of these old families, it would have to be one with Scottish blood.”

And so they doubled their discarding time, tossing away anything they found that came after 1799 and anything that wasn’t accompanied by imaginary bagpipe playing - or so Dean called it after they’d been searching a good twenty minutes.

For the most part they were silent, with Castiel sighing inwardly when he was told not to use his supernatural abilities for things that could put him on the radar outside of emergencies. Wasn’t the death of five people an emergency? But the only other thing that broke up the quiet were little cries here and there of, “Ooh! 1784! No wait” and “I bet I’ll find something faster than both of you princesses.”

“Some of the names here, man. Jerusha, Eleazer? Can you imagine the nicknames these guys would have gotten growing up in today’s world? Swirlies! Swirlies as far as the eye can see!” Dean snickered at his own joke but soon turned to grumbling when he stubbed his foot on a bit of broken gravestone.

“Jerusha was the wife of King Uzziah, if that helps,” Castiel said. “He eventually caught leprosy.”

“Fun story, but not relevant to our current cause. Oh, look. Sam’s already drooling over the idea of picking your brain. Down, boy.” Dean stretched his arms over his head and let out an oof! as Sam punched him lightly in the stomach. And with that another half hour passed before they collectively decided to give up.

“Oldest one I can find is Isaac Magoon, died 1733. I feel like not all of the graves are even here,” Sam said as he gestured towards a stack of broken and unidentifiable headstones piled at the bottom of an old maple tree. “I dunno, this could be relevant or it could be meaningless. Maybe let’s get some lunch and I’ll keep researching what I can on the computer.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Dean**

Even though they’d said he wasn’t going to get in the front, Cas was sitting by his side again while Sam stretched out along the back and stuck his smelly feet up against the doors. Kid was too big for his own good sometimes, and if Dean enjoyed feeling surrounded by his little brother’s giant frame on occasion that was nobody’s business but his own.

At the moment though, Cas’ grand declaration involving the L-word was rattling around in his brain like a marble, like there was nothing else in there anymore to stop it. Thing was, he was certain Cas would say it again if he was asked to or maybe if he wasn’t, and it was frankly too close to the heart of the matter for Dean’s liking. He and Sam might even be in on this whole ‘talk about your feelings’ thing together after the nightmares Dean had been having lately.

He grumbled and reached over to change the station, only feeling slightly better when The Who came on. The few residents they passed as they rumbled cautiously through the streets of the town were out raking their lawns and lifted their heads to glare at them, but Dean paid it no mind. He’d say the number of cases where people wanted to run him off their land before they discovered there really was a big bad oogie boogie outweighed the ones where they didn’t.

Still, he wasn’t expecting the young Asian woman to come running across her lawn, trying to flag them down. She looked worried more than angry and so Dean pulled the Impala over while Sam rolled down the window. “Can we help you, Ma’am?”

“I just wanted to ask you boys - you’re trying to stop this aren’t you?” She looked worriedly over her shoulder, not leaning in too closely in case she needed to make a quick getaway. In the background a door opened and a girl of about nine leaned out calling something about lunch being ready. “I’ll be there in a second, honey!”

“Of course we are, that’s what we do,” Sam answered in his most reassuring voice.

We’re the good guys trying to protect normal citizens such as yourself.”

“I’m not even going to pretend that’s not frightening, but maybe it’s the fact that we need protecting more than anything else.” She shook her head and seemed to gather up her courage, while Dean noted that her sweater matched her nail polish. Huh. “The truth is, what we heard at that town hall after you left, well...It only attacks people of Scottish descent.”

The unspoken question lingered in the air. After all the things they’d seen, an Asian-Scottish-American would hardly be the most unusual. “Oh! No, no, my husband and I are both Han Chinese, first generation. We’re fine if that’s to be believed but I can’t stand by and watch my neighbors be murdered by some sort of hungry ghost.”

“It’s more like a banshee, Ma’am,” called Cas from the backseat. He was ignored.

“--So what I heard was that if you can catch it and answer three questions in complete truth then it will answer three questions from you, too. I hope that helps. I’ve got to go. Good luck!” And she ran across the lawn towards her waiting daughter like the devil was on her tail. The three men in the car sat there in baffled silence for a beat and then they were on the road again headed for a diner in nearby Windham.

 

How Sam managed to get a ovo-lacto vegetarian egg white frittata with a side of avocado in a tiny place like this Dean would never ever figure out. “So I’m thinking it’s worth a try to ask these questions,” he said around a mouthful of coffee as black as his hunter’s heart.

Castiel was sitting at his side with a warm thigh pressed along the length of his own. It was making thinking very difficult. They were in close quarters in a tall-backed green vinyl booth with a plate of two eggs over easy, two sausages, two strips of bacon, two pancakes and a mound of hash browns it was going to take hours for his insides to conquer - or it would if the guy sitting next to him didn’t keep stealing from it.

“These are good,” Cas said as he chewed on a sausage. The lone strawberry milkshake he had actually ordered sat mostly forgotten in front of him. “Not at all what one would usually identify as food based on the ingredients, but very good. Can we order some more?”

Sam at least was on point. “I think we should think of what we’re going to ask when we catch up to her again.” He took a sip of his own coffee and rubbed at his eyes.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I just. I’m stressed out about a few things I guess.”

Dean snorted. “Comes with the job, man. You think we need some time off after this?”

“No. Well, maybe. I don’t know. I just keep feeling like something’s gotta give and it’s the being on edge that’s getting to me. Maybe I’m just,” and he had that pained look on his face that always tugged at Dean’s heart, “Maybe I’m just lonely.”

Hell if that wasn’t depressing. His little brother, lonely in his company and Dean sitting there right with him, wishing to kiss the frown off of his small, sweet mouth. “Maybe you need a trip to a gentleman’s club?” He turned up the lewdness in his grin to eight. “I could lend you the latest copy of Busty Asian Beauties?” Although after meeting that soccer mom earlier in the day it seemed like a really uncomfortable comment. Dean coughed into his napkin and willed it away.

“An aching heart is not the same as an aching loin, Dean,” Cas interjected before sticking his grubby little fork into Dean’s pancakes.

“First of all, you don’t even need to eat. Second of all, never say aching loin or any variation of that ever again. Third, you may be right but one of these days you’re going to have to learn that this family doesn’t talk about their feelings --”

“But Sam was just --”

“And fourth,” he steamrolled over Cas poking holes in his argument, “What friggin’ questions are we going to ask this chick?”

“How about, ‘how do we kill you’?”

“Could be useful. It’s not like she fits in a microwave.”

“I’m not sure I understand that reference.”

“What about who her master is?”

“That’s a given.” Dean paused and muffled a belch with his fist. “Maybe ‘how do we get rid of you’ or ‘how do we send you back to your realm’? It would be kind of a waste if we asked how to kill her and she just answered with ‘you don’t’.”

“I think we should ask her where her book is,” said Castiel. “Even if we find her master we may not be able to find the source of her power. We should banish her and make sure she can’t return.”

“Good thinking. Jesus, Sam, not you too.” His brother looked up sheepishly from where his fingers had curled around a remaining hash brown.

A second later Dean pushed his plate into the center of the table, right between the three of them, and admitted to himself that he liked being in the pockets of these two just as much as he liked them in his own pockets, which then turned to thoughts of fingers creeping into the waistband of his jeans. Any reminders of a dream-world purgatory were just going to have to wait.

“You gentlemen from around here?” asked their waitress as she came over with their cheque.

“Nope,” Dean answered cheerfully. “We’re from all over I guess.”

“How about originally?”

“Kansas,” answered Sam while Cas said, “Illinois.”

“Yeah. Uh, Cas is from Illinois. Sam and I are from Kansas.” He grabbed for the cheque and then lifted his hips to tug out his wallet. “Why? Don’t get many customers from out of town?”

“Well, no. I guess we’re pretty insular around here. I was just - haha. Call me crazy but my friend and I were trying to bet on which of you three were together.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Like together together?”

“First we thought it was you two,” she said gesturing at the two Winchesters, “And then we thought it was you two,” she gestured at the two sitting next to one another, “And then after that we thought it might be you two,” she said, finally gesturing at Sam and Cas.

All of her wide gesturing was causing her dark braids to sway against the pepto bismol pink of her diner uniform. “Make no mistake, any of those three options would make for a very handsome couple. It’s just that I’ve got twenty bucks riding on this and there’s not much else to do around here but make snap judgments about complete strangers.”

“We’re not -” began Cas.

“He and I are bro-” started Sam.

“Well then you’d better pay up over here, ‘cause guys like us don’t fit into your little monogamy box. Isn’t that right Sweetie? Honeypie?” Dean grinned and reached for Cas’ and Sam’s hands in turn, pressing a kiss to the back of both of them. Sam looked like he was about to have a cat and the one in the trench coat was pink up to his ears.

They exited the diner without having to pay more than a handful of change and a tip for the excellent food. Two gobsmacked waitresses watched them go. “Hey,” Dean said as Sam shot him the biggest bitchface he’d seen in weeks. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Why do I have to be Honeypie?”


	12. Chapter 12

**???**

“Today has been a complete disaster,” said the one who had summoned her, banging a fist on the coffee table. “You just had to choose such a public location, didn’t you? What were you thinking? Do you come with some secret penchant for the dramatic that I wasn’t told about?”

“It bleer my een wi’ greetin’ to hear ye say tha’! Stare not on me for wrong-doing, say na tha’ I’ve done mair than wha ye asked, or ne’er see me more!”

The master paused for a second, staring hard. “I see.” Another pause accompanied a thoughtful pace across the den of a colonial home that had been in the family for generations. “So can I order when and where you kill someone for me?”

The hag’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Th’ hunters I’ll do an’ nae mair. Here’s a messenger an tha’s tha’. Ye’re maybe thinkin’ the bean nighe’s the Deil’s servant, but tent me weel: folk maun do something for their bread and so maun I. I’m nae pleas’d but tha’ ye’ll get yer fairin’ soon enough.”

“I wish you came with a translation booklet,” said the other, “But for now I’ll settle for telling you not to do anything that may endanger me or get me found out. The point of all of this is to get rid of my competitors, not put them on my tail.”

“Yon spell were to shun the fight o’ clans, no’ murder bairns,” the hag hissed, scratching at a warty cheek and the master shuddered, but did not look away. In the end though, the bean nighe had little choice but to obey. She was bound to the one who had brought her into the realm.

 

**Sam**

So-and-so Allen had married Obscure-Hebrew-name Fuller and then that Fuller had married a Baker and the Baker had married an Allen and round and round it went until Sam’s head was full of (probably) useless information that was making his eyelids droop.

The inside of the car had steamed up as they sat by the roadside several feet from the stream. They were on a stakeout of sorts, if waiting by a random patch of shallow water could be called that. Dean had tried playing ‘eye spy’ with Cas before he’d discovered angelic powers included an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what Dean was thinking of before he even said it. On the other hand when it was Castiel’s turn it went something like this:

“I spy with my little eye something - why do I have to say it like that? I think my vessel’s eyes are an average size for a human. Okay, okay - something that is speckled yellowish cream and black and sitting on a rock behind that tree on the left.”

“You can’t choose a thing other people can’t spy, Cas.”

“Oh.”

“Is it a bird?” Sam asked, not looking up from his screen. There had been an angel statue in the graveyard earlier but it didn’t seem to be turning up any information. Trust that it would mean nothing, knowing Sam’s luck.

“No.”

“Give us a hint, man,” Dean whined. He’d cracked the window just so the smell of three cooped-up men wouldn’t suffocate them to death and Sam was grateful for the cool air on the overheating motor on his laptop. Scrolling, scrolling… how many times was he going to have to hit the ‘next’ button before the word ceased to have any meaning?

“Alright.” Cas leaned over conspiratorially and said, “It can fly.”

“So a bird then. No, not a bird, an, uh, an insect. A moth? A, a, what, a butterfly? A kite? Speckled. Creamy speckled thing, like, let’s say ...an egg?”

“Eggs don’t fly, Dean.” He was reading community-produced newsletters with ads for real estate agents, afterschool daycare, book clubs and home-based bakeries.

“Maybe Cas was speaking in potentials!”

“I wasn’t. It could fly right now if it chose to.”

“Could be a type of lichen?” Sam offered, only to have his earlier answer thrown back in his face. He’d once read an article about how lichen was supposed to be a good indicator of airborne pollution, but supposed that didn’t mean they personally flew. Stupid lichen.

“No. It’s a male Eastern Hercules Beetle,” Castiel announced finally. He beamed a proud smile at his companions. “Does that mean I won the game?”

“We’re not playing the game anymore, Cas,” Dean yawned. “Not now or ever again.”

Sam shifted his butt on the seat to get some feeling back in his legs and then let out a shout of surprise. “Guess who the founder of this place was!” he called.

“Guess who I just found,” Dean called back, rolling up his window just in time to push open his door. Apparently Sam’s discovery was going to have to wait then. All three of them exited mere feet from the bean nighe, who had taken up her washing and begun to hum as though the car and its passengers were of no concern. Sam picked up the iron ax he’d used to gank a Leshi in the past and slid out of the back, research forgotten.

Step by step Sam approached as cautiously as he could. His heavy boots made little sound in the grass that, while on the verge of losing a battle to the coming frost, was still moist and did not crunch under foot. The washer had pushed aside her green mantle for the day, scrubbing at the shrouds in the water with great vigor with her colossal breasts draped over her shoulders.

If he could manage to suckle at one of them he could get her to grant a wish but the thought was stomach-churning and if he failed he might well die. Instead he chose to focus on her song, which had changed slightly in tone since the last time he’d heard it.

  
In the corner of his eye he could see Dean stalking in a very similar way, his own iron-bladed knife gripped for slashing, not for throwing. Cas stood towards the back, angel blade at his side so that it was hidden in the folds of his trenchcoat. From the street people might think he was just gazing into the distance and never be aware until they were done for; not for the first time Sam remarked on what a good little soldier Castiel must have been. He wondered what he and his green-eyed brother had done to deserve such a comrade in arms.

“Mary Allen, Julia Allen, Daniel Paterson, Angus Buchanan, William Nelson, Samuel Winchester…”

Before he had time to process it the ground dropped out beneath Sam and he had the curious sensation of being frozen, that he had suddenly been turned into a mannequin. Mannequins were able to stand though, right? Mannequins could feel their joints. He, on the other hand, couldn’t feel a single thing even as he hit the ground. Couldn’t feel his lungs nor his muscles, couldn’t feel the beating of his own heart

 

He didn’t hear Castiel shouting to Dean, “Grab the shrouds!” as he tackled the bean nighe from behind. He didn’t hear her wail or Dean frantically calling his name as he hefted yard after yard of soaking fabric from the river. He certainly couldn’t see his name embroidered on the edge of one, not with his eyes pointed lifelessly at the sky as they were, and therefore he couldn’t make out the tears in the corners of his brother’s eyes either.

There was this great vast nothingness for a few moments where Sam thought he would either be sent to Hell or to Heaven, but remained in the absence of all things. There was no colour but something flat, an endless dark grey expanse that extended to both sound and sensation when he reached out to touch it. “Dean?” he tried to call, but he had no voice and there was no air for the words to reach either. “Cas?”

Sam lingered in this great void for quite some time, or so it seemed to him, before he felt the tugging of a light and he knew with some strange certainty he was headed upward. It wasn’t ideal, but he’d take it if the alternative option was the unspeakable torment of Lucifer’s cage. He shuddered and reached for the light…

And in the next split second everything was too loud, too bright, too much. Everything hurt and his lungs took in a massive, aching breath that pinned his shoulder blades to the ground with its force. Even the watered-down sun that peaked through the grey clouds was too bright. Without thinking he reached for the bodies hovering over them and pulled them over him more fully to block out the light.

“Sammy? Sammy!” Dean was on him in a second, squeezing that newfound breath from his lungs in a crushing hug. A damp, salty kiss was pressed to the corner of his mouth and that was new, and from his vantage point on the ground he could see Dean giving Cas one of the same. “You did it,” he was saying, wiping at his eyes with his sleeves. “You saved him Cas, oh god, we almost lost -- I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him again.”

“How do you feel, Sam?” asked the angel, looking a little worn but as beatific as Sam had ever seen him. With the sunlight backlighting him Castiel looked every bit an angel from old paintings, though the effect was somewhat dampened by the GnR t-shirt. His soothing hands and cool fingers stroked the hair off of Sam’s forehead as Dean squeezed his brother’s fingers. Sam suspected he might be counting them to make sure they were all intact.

“I feel,” he began, assessing himself from his head to his feet, “Good. A little worn out, sure, but good. Why do I smell smoke?”

Apparently Dean had yanked out two shrouds from the lake: one each for Sam and Dean. Castiel, whether by virtue of being an angel or being possessed of a vessel with Novak for a last name, was exempt. With Castiel wrangling the washer woman, Dean had run back to the car and doused the sheets with gasoline. “Salted ‘em too. They burned a bit crappy, but whatever gets the job done, hey?”

In the meantime Castiel had gained a wish.

“So you mean you…?”

“Yes,” he filled in, mouth twisted in a sour moue. “It was incredibly unpleasant. I wished for her not to harm you or Dean any further and then she disappeared.”

Sam frowned. “But Cas, why didn’t you ask for her just to stop harming everybody if you had the chance?”

“She said it wasn’t possible,” Dean explained. “Kind of like a genie getting a wish for more wishes I guess. But hey, you’re back!”

“But - but I was dead again, wasn’t I?”

“And Cas lived up to his word again,” Dean said with a grin as he clapped Sam’s savior on the back. “He did his mojo and lo, there was life!”

In spite of his protesting, both his brother and his brother’s (their?) angel helped him to the car, apparently afraid that he couldn’t walk anymore. Frankly, Sam was pretty sure that he was in better shape than when he’d died.

They didn’t speak about why Will Nelson hadn’t been spared as well, about how Cas was only willing to perform miracles for the Winchesters and how such an act in front of a crowd would create international attention that would have Heaven down on their heads before they could say Hallelujah.

“What time is it?” he asked as he settled into the back seat without protest. Dean had wanted him up front again but the day’s excitement had left him needing his space to spread out.

“About four thirty,” Dean said, turning the radio on low. “Feels later, doesn’t it?”

“I guess it’s because the sun sets early in these parts. In fact,” Sam said, checking his phone, “Sunset’s at quarter to five today. Think the bean nighe will be back out again tonight?”

“I highly doubt she’ll appear again within the next twelve hours,” Castiel called over his shoulder. “She seemed to be weakened after granting my wish.”

“I didn’t even know that angels could wish for stuff from fairies,” Dean said as he took a left at an empty intersection.

“Angels can wish for lots of things,” Cas said. Sam thought he could see the angel touch the corner of his lips and knew exactly how he felt.

“Well, for what it’s worth you guys, thank you for saving me. Just in time, too. I could feel the pull starting.”

“I told you,” Castiel groused to the man sitting next to him. “I said if we didn’t get him right now he was going to be lost.”

“And I had faith that you could get him back!” Dean stopped at the red light abruptly enough that they all fell forward in their seats. “Sorry about that, Sammy. You still feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I am. Just, uh, where are we going?”

“Out of this damn town. Can’t sleep too close by after the stuff from that town hall meeting and I don’t want to risk someone keying Baby in the night.” Sam smiled as his brother mumbled something about being tempted to go dark side. There was something he was supposed to be telling them, Sam thought through the haze of impending sleep. Something he’d found right before Dean had spotted the washerwoman. Something important…


	13. Chapter 13

**Castiel**

It took them approximately thirty-five minutes to get over to New London and into the parking lot of a small Mediterranean bakery. Castiel sat in his seat with a map folded across his lap that he didn’t need to help them navigate, but which Dean insisted he have because Sam was sleeping and they shouldn’t wake him up. As if Cas didn’t know exactly where a place was as soon as he was told to go there.

It was dark and the rain that the sky had been threatening all afternoon was now coming down in fat, heavy drops all around them. The sound was a steady tattoo on the windows and roof of the Impala and it was beautiful to hear alongside Dean’s quiet singing. “What group is this?”

Dean hit the fast forward button on the tape deck. He glanced worriedly over his shoulder, perhaps fearing that he might wake his brother, but stopped in the middle of a song and rewound briefly. “This song,” he whispered, leaning over conspiratorially, “This song. Just listen.”

And even though he had been told to listen to the song, Castiel found himself listening to the continued crooning of his best friend, the sound of the rain, the soft snoring of a living Samuel Winchester in the back seat. He thought he might burst from the happiness in his chest there. “You have a very beautiful singing voice, Dean.”

“Shhh,” Dean waved him off, but didn’t stop singing. “Hear this voice from deep inside, it’s the call of your heart. Close your eyes and you will find the way out of the dark.”

“Here I am, will you send me an angel?” Apparently they hadn’t been as quiet as they could have been, for Sam had joined in the singing in a voice thick with sleep. He was smiling at both of the men in the front seat, bobbing his head along to the music so that it made his hair sway back and forth. “Classic Scorpions.”

Castiel waited politely as the brothers sang along, grinning and striking various poses that were later explained as ‘hair band moves’ from the 1980s. He suspected if he were to move he may just explode in a million directions or else do something stupid like kiss one or both of them.

He would have done it before if he thought it wouldn’t get him kicked out of the car, but if Dean’s display earlier had been any indication…

“They’re most famous for Rock You Like a Hurricane,” Dean said as he finally turned off the engine and unbuckled his seat belt.

“But when you were gone all that time, that song took on a little more meaning for both of us,” Sam said, ignoring the way his brother climbed onto his seat and tried to pinch his side. He sat up and breathed heavily on one of the back windows to fog it up. DEAN IS A DORK was quickly marked onto the surface with one of Sam’s long fingers, which earned him a smack to the back of the head.

“Obviously feeling better then,” Dean grumbled, not fully able to hide his amusement. “Although you wrote it facing in, bitch! Ha!”

“That was on purpose! There’s no one who needs to be reminded more of that indisputable fact than the passengers of this car. Since you won’t let anyone else drive, that’s gonna be either me or Cas back here, now forever aware of your supreme dorkiness.”

“Can I assume that when you say dork, in this case you are not referring to a whale’s penis?”

Sam and Dean opened their doors nearly in unison. “You would be correct.”

“See? Cas is growing and learning every single day.” 

 

The reason for this obscure establishment soon became apparent when, apart from Dean and Sam’s perpetual need for sustenance, the young Winchester’s eyes lit up like he’d found a precious gift. “Oh my god, they have halloumi and hummus and feta and stuffed grape leaves! Look at all the salads!”

Dean rolled his eyes but smiled as his brother crouched down and began to point to nearly everything on display. It was a small place bereft of other customers in the current weather, but it had a faded certificate on the wall declaring it the best deli in Southeastern Connecticut and the look on Sam’s face suggested this was true. “Hey Sammy, be sure to get me some stuff I can actually eat huh?” he called, stuffing his hands in his pockets and turning away to look at a display of olive jars over in the corner.

“That was very kind of you,” Castiel said, following Dean over to the corner. He picked up a bottle of almond-stuffed olives from Greece and read the label just to keep his hands from wandering anywhere else. “You’re very good with your brother.”

“Yeah well, for a long time it was just him an’ me. Out here on the road, sometimes you just figure out how to do little things to keep the peace.” He paused and focused his piercing green gaze on Castiel. “And sometimes you just need to celebrate people being alive.”

“You want to try any of this, Cas?” Sam called, now hunched over a row of pastries folded into little pouches. “This is a Fatayer, it’s just a filled pastry. Feta and spinach over here, beef over there.”

Dean made a little face at the mention of feta but quickly recovered. He flashed Cas his biggest smile and gestured for him to move forward and choose. It felt nice, very nice to be included and allowed to make decisions, but it felt even better when Sam shot him a knowing smile when he chose the beef.

    “I’m glad you’re alive again, Sam,” Castiel called out as they dashed through the rain and back into the car. He was relegated to the back seat again along with their dinner, next to the half-faded message decrying Dean’s coolness. “I guess it must have been the connection to the Campbells that gave the bean nighe the opening to attack you. I find that very worrisome for the residents of a place called Scotland.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed as he began to drive again. He wasn’t asking anyone for directions anymore, only heading for the downtown of the town of just over 20,000 with one hand on the wheel and the other pressed thoughtfully against his jaw. “I guess that lady we met this afternoon was right.”

“You think it was George who told her or…? Oh my god, George! Pass me the laptop, Cas.” Sam opened the computer, made a disparaging remark about the battery life on it and then scanned the web page he’d left open. “The town’s original founder was a guy called Isaac Magoon! They must be related!”

“Should we go over there and confront him?” asked Castiel.

“Well, we could try except that we have no proof that it was him. Could have been anyone from one of the early settling clans,” said Sam. His eyes widened into saucers and he waggled a finger wildly at both driver and back seat passenger as he answered his own question: “Except! Except that this morning he said that he’d seen the bean nighe too and he didn’t die like that other guy did!”

“So what? He’s either dead or a criminal mastermind now?” Dean asked. “Is that the plan?”

“Either way I suppose it warrants checking out,” admitted Cas. “Although he didn’t seem like the murdering type to me.”

“Oh man, if I had a dollar for every time Sam or I said something like that,” Dean sighed. “O--kay then, I guess we aren’t going to see the sights of beautiful downtown New London. Power-hungry fairy wielders it is.”

 

It continued to pour down as they drove through the country roads between New London and Scotland. The ground was cooling in the sudden temperature change that had greeted them that morning only to dip further after the sun had gone; a ghostly grey fog arose from the forests along the road and Sam commented that it reminded him of the wolf scene in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, whatever that was.

From his vantage point in the back Castiel could see Dean’s fingers creeping over the space between the seats, squeezing and prodding at Sam’s hands, encircling his wrist. They reached for one another here and there so very casually and he thought maybe it was just that they needed reassurance that the other was still there; that they were still alive. He felt the world outside their car fade away into the light from the dashboard and that which streamed in from the street lights few and far between.

Heaven was very far away and so were the Leviathan, and yet his mistakes were never closer. Sometimes one or the other of the brothers leaned back to ask him a question and Cas nodded where appropriate, but mostly he sat there and smelled the wood and the citrus of their skin and the smell of buttery pastry, of something he had helped them pick out.

He thought about how it could feel like he was about to explode from the pressure within but that the ache was so good; it was an exquisite pain that both blunted and honed the edges of the pain that he himself had wrought. “I really don’t think it’s George,” he said at one point, but didn’t think they believed him.


	14. Chapter 14

**Dean**

The Magoon home was almost exactly like Dean had pictured it, except that it extended out on either side a great deal more. It was a dark grey affair with too many windows that were currently taking a beating in the ever popular drizzling rain and high wind combo. A porch light was on, but there appeared to be a couple of different decks on this beast of add-ons and renovations so that it was hard to know where they were supposed to knock. And they were going to knock, weren’t they?

“So what are we going to do, get ourselves invited in and then get the drop on this guy?” asked Dean, shivering through his thick leather jacket. Damn it had gotten cold out. Maybe if the waterways froze over they wouldn’t have to deal with this chick anymore and then Dean could go back to other things like griping over being attracted to wholly inappropriate people, like his brother and his guardian angel.

“I thought we could start by talking to him to figure out if he actually is guilty or not,” said Sam. He too was tugging his collar up around his neck, but did Dean one better by asking if Cas was cold and if he needed anything. He didn’t.

“Could be a plan. Could be walking into some weirdo fairy trap too,” he answered as he hopped out of the driver’s seat.

“We’re always walking into traps. Now’s hardly the time to worry about it.” As soon as Sam had said it, Dean was grabbing at his jacket. His brother might be taller than him, but Dean wasn’t kidding when he said he’d toss him over his knee and smack his ass if he wasn’t careful. He’d already died once that day and that was way more than Dean was willing to accept.

They walked up to the porch on the left as a trio but it was Sam who knocked on the door. Dean plastered on his best door-to-door salesman smile and prepared to have the thing slammed in their face as soon as George opened it; after all, they hadn’t made the best first or second impression with the man so far.

“Hello?” Their target came to the door in jeans and a button-up wool cardigan. His belly stretched the buttons close to the middle, but it looked every bit the sort of thing a wife would buy for her husband for father’s day. Lisa had once said he could start wearing those after he retired, which Dean took to mean he’d die before that happened.

“Hey, sorry to bother you at night. We just had a few questions about the bean nighe you reported seeing this morning,” Sam said. George’s eyes narrowed, but before he could refuse he continued with his spiel. “It won’t take long, we promise. We’re just as concerned as you are about the residents of the community.”

“What the heck do you know about Scotland? Any of you ever set foot in this area before that festival?” George’s arms were crossed over his broad chest, but he hadn’t shut the door. That was progress.

“We’ve been to the real Scotland,” Dean mumbled, which was apparently not the right answer. Sam discreetly punched him in the side. “Listen, we just want to know as much as we can about the bean nighe. We’re, uh.”

“Folklorists,” Castiel provided smoothly. “We collect the history of Scotland and legends surrounding it.”

“Yeah, for the Scottish Society,” Dean agreed, secretly cheering on Cas’ string of awesome ideas lately. Wouldn’t have minded serving in the garrison of a man like that if he’d been born an angel/dick. “So we came over to investigate the suspicious activity as well as judge the harp contest.”

George hesitated another instant and then held his door open, gesturing for them to enter. “I’ve got green tea if you want it,” he said, “Or else water. Doctor said my heart wasn’t going to take much more after the fright I had this morning and I don’t want to take any chances.”

“You went this afternoon?” Sam asked, glancing around the room in that unabashed way he had, curious about everything from the exposed wooden beams in the ceiling to the wooden floor boards.

“Yep. Had to after poor Will kicked the bucket. Some guys from the Historical Society took him over to the hospital along with Abby and I, so I got checked out to make sure I wasn’t next on the list.” Sam was interested in the green tea (to no one’s surprise) and so was Castiel for some reason.

Dean wasn’t into anything that tasted like a plant had just up and peed in a cup and there was enough water going on outside the windows, so he paced the room and inspected the harps hanging on the walls. Here and there stood trophies for Scottish dancing, photos of Abby and a woman who must have been Abby’s mother. The last one dated from 1998.

“Well, we’re glad to hear you’re doing well.” The four men settled around a large round kitchen table that appeared to be handmade. “Do you have any ideas as to why you might have been spared?”

“I have no idea. Don’t you think I’d be doing something about it if I did? And you,” he said, waggling a finger at Castiel, “How’d you know Will was beyond saving so quickly anyway?”

“I,” Cas began, squeezing his handle-free teacup a little too tightly. “I have experience with -”

“Healing people,” Dean finished for him. “That’s our Angus, out in the fields and doing God’s work.”

Cas gave him a bitchface that rivaled Sammy’s even on a good day. Guess he could have thought that one through better, but in a strange turn of events George began shaking his buddy’s hand and even saluted him at one point. Guy seemed to be going on about duty to one’s country and bless Cas for all the hard work he’d done. Dean had seriously stepped in it this time. He shrugged his shoulders in a bid to avoid getting smacked later, but was pretty sure it hadn’t worked.

“Your family’s been in this area for a long time, hasn’t it Mr. Magoon?” Sam said, face set in concentration as he ignored the antics of his companions. Bless him, too. Dean nearly snorted.

“More’n three hundred years. It was Isaac Magoon that founded Scotland itself, you know.” He beamed with pride, which Dean supposed he could get behind. Some people had the family business, others had the family homestead. It was all about inheritance.

“D’you think that’s what did it? Like maybe the bean nighe can’t get town founders or something?” George looked at Dean, seriously considering the question. Seriously. Dean frowned, struck with the uncomfortable sensation that the guy really hadn’t done it. There wasn’t much more sinister about the guy than whatever was hiding under his kilt on the weekends.

“I guess so. I mean, it could be that, right?” He glanced over at Sam and Cas, who seemed to have drawn the same conclusions. Glad that he hadn’t decided to make any bets with the angel recently, he promised George that they’d share whatever information they had with him if they came across any.

George, for his part, told them that they still weren’t welcome within the town limits because people weren’t all convinced that George had seen the old woman floating toward them around the edge of the lake. “And I did, I swear I did. Couldn’t figure out why she was going round when she could go straight across, but thank the heavens she did.”

“Washerwomen can’t cross water,” Castiel said in that low, rumbly voice of his. “According to legend at least. They can only remain by its edge.”

“And now I won’t be going anywhere near them! Thank you, gentlemen. It’s been enlightening but I’ve got to go pick up Abby from yoga in a few minutes and I don’t want you here when I get back.”

“Our regards to her,” Sam said as he rose to let himself out. Trust Sam to have picked her out - when had Sam ever chosen a woman that wasn’t scary as all get out? Lady was probably a demon if they were lucky. Dean shook his head and told himself very firmly that it wasn’t jealousy propelling those thoughts.

A stream of icy water ran down the back of Dean’s neck and had him jumping like a little girl. “Jesus Christ! Someone tell me they’ve got a warm hotel room for me before I freeze solid!”

The drive towards the very skeevy Motel 8 that Cas had discovered in some little hamlet that might be even more obscure than Scotland was quiet and pensive. What exactly had they accomplished over the course of the day except watch a man die and discount their best suspect?

Dean gripped the steering wheel tight and tried to ignore the headache building behind his eyes. Sam managed to stay silent for exactly the length of time it took Dean to turn the radio off with extreme prejudice when a cheerful song came on.

“Got something on your chest, Dean?”

“Just that this ben nee-yuh thingy needs to get the hell off the planet. First she straight-up kills a dude, then she kills _you_ and we’re just supposed to sit around with our thumbs up our asses hoping for some sort of clue? Could be any one of those old families, right? Took out the Allens, so it can’t be them. The Bakers? We got any of those?” The fact was that Dean was gonna have her head after she touched his little brother. If Cas hadn’t been with them - if he’d been having one of his ‘this number is currently out of service’ moments… Dean saw red.

“No Bakers,” Sam reported after a bit of clicking and clacking on the keyboard.

“It is frustrating. I agree with you,” called Cas over Dean’s shoulder. He was close enough that his breath could be felt tickling the little hairs on the driver’s neck. Not a good idea for paying attention to the road. “Or I would if I knew why we would put prehensile digits up our backsides.”

Sam laughed so hard he snorted and dropped the laptop. “I think that’s the kind of thing big brothers are supposed to teach about,” he insisted. “I’m not touching that subject with a ten-foot pole.”

His grimace faded against his will into a grin. “Well Cas, there are a few pleasurable outcomes from doing something like that,” he started in his best instructional voice. “If you’re by yourself, you might be looking for an exciting thing known as a prostate, but I would recommend other fingers for that. If you’re with a partner you could be aiming to seal the deal or just amp up the level on a blow job, but that’s up to the participants to decide.”

Sam’s smug smile dropped and his jaw twitched. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Uh. Yeah, I mean... it would be for pleasure, Cas. You know. Sex and stuff.”

“I’m interested in trying it out,” said the angel in all seriousness. “I know I didn’t do a very good job of it at the den of iniquity but I’d like another chance, if that’s allowed.”

Dean and Sam looked at each other in one of those moments they’d experienced too many times over the years, one that said they knew they should be horrified or panicking and yet they weren’t, nor were they going to bother with being weirded out about it. Who exactly was Cas addressing, anyway?

“Well, how about we get settled in our room and then,” and here he swallowed, losing just an inch of his nerve, “We’ll, um, talk about it okay?”

Holy crap. His friggin’ dream anxieties were creeping up on the waking world. He could just hear his father telling him off about not cutting the current discussion off at the source. Who knew where it would lead? And yet that’s exactly what Dean wanted to find out.

 

 

The fragile quietude had settled over them again as Sam went up to the front desk and got a key. His (not so) little brother bit his lip and looked aside as he announced that he’d gotten them another king. Dean’s stomach did a little flip as he reached for the bags.

They ate in yet more silence wherein the three of them occasionally met eyes and then quickly looked away. At one point Sam and Cas’ fingers met over a tub of olives and they pulled back as if they’d been burned. Dean trained his eyes on the print of leaves and some sort of green berries up against a burnt orange wall. For all he knew it might have been depicting olives, too.

“Nice place,” he commented just to break up whatever this was between them. He took a swig of his beer and considered heading for whisky country instead. “Better than most places we’ve stayed, actually.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Kinda weird, isn’t it?”

What was weird was that the place actually had a sofa and a coffee table and the three of them were all crowded around it like a little family. It was homey, it was comfy, and they were thinking of messing around like experimenting teenagers. Dean bashed a fist against his chest to fight the impending heartburn. “Well, I’m going to take a shower,” he announced. “Salt lines all secure?”

Castiel nodded and removed his trench coat, hanging it over an arm of the couch. He was still wearing that damn GnR t-shirt and to Dean, he might as well have been naked. The barrier that the bathroom door put between them couldn’t go up fast enough.

He felt tingly and unsettled all through the process of scrubbing his hair and soaping up, a sense of anticipation that came with something like fear but couldn’t quite be described that way. He was… oh god, he was nervous, wasn’t he? When the hell was Dean Winchester ever nervous?

_When do you ever consider sleeping with your little brother and your best friend_? his inner voice mocked. _How do you think things are going to go back to normal after this_? And just like that he was back in Dream Purgatory, fighting off his personal demons and the man he had admired and hated so much in life, back staring at the bean nighe by the river’s edge and seeing his failure in her continued existence. There are some things you just can’t do.

“When do I ever listen to people telling me I can’t do something?” he said aloud as he opened the door with a towel slung low around his waist. The cool air of the room hardened his nipples and gave him goose bumps as he entered the bedroom/living room combination.

Cas and Sammy were kissing on the couch. Sam’s big, plaid-covered back was to him and he was clutching at their friend’s arms in a patented Winchester move that Dean was almost certain he’d taught him. Dean would have turned around, maybe gotten his clothes and then crawled out the window if he thought his legs would cooperate right at that moment.

“Dean!” Sam cried, pulling away. He was nervous and Dean hated that, because it meant that Sam might be doing something wrong and he never wanted to admit that Sam was fallible even after all they’d been through.

“Sam said that if we didn’t initiate something you’d never agree to it,” Castiel explained with a concerned frown, one that never failed to worm its way into Dean’s heart. Sam had said…? “We were discussing it while you performed your daily ablutions. Your brother loves you just as much as I do, Dean. He is afraid that you won’t accept his advances.”

Dean made a strangled noise in his throat. Had he fallen into some sort of twilight zone here? “So you two were making out because…what? I’m not sure I’ve got this all clear.”

“Because we were hoping you’d join us,” said Sam, and damn if that boy didn’t look like he was going to throw up. It was a sentiment Dean was definitely sharing at that moment, but it felt more like nerves and fragile hope than disgust. Some part of Dean knew it ought to be disgust, but like every other thing he felt towards Sam and Cas it never managed to get to that dark place. Love, need and want trumped every other emotion in his chest. Better to put Sam out of his misery, but he did have a big brother’s obligation to torture.

“Right,” said Dean, walking to the window and to take a look out the curtains before he shut them tight and double-checked the door. “Well.” He surveyed the scene, glancing at Cas’ gorgeous kiss-stung lips and Sam’s watery eyes. Dean threw himself onto the bed right into the center and patted either side. He shot them both a king-of-the-world grin and said, “Come on over guys, looks like I’m late to the party. Got some catching up to do.”

If he pretended it was a joke then it didn’t have to hit so close to home when Cas climbed up next to his left hand and kissed him gently on the temple. It wasn’t supposed to be tender; sex with Dean Winchester wasn’t tender. Sam’s weight sank into the mattress to his right and for a moment he could see endlessly into his brother’s hazel eyes, through memories of birthdays and fireworks and tragedies and anger.

He could see love and it gave him the strength to pull Sam’s mouth down and kiss him slow and deep, impressing all the precious things Sam was to him upon his brother’s lips. He pulled away and looked towards Castiel’s crystalline blue gaze and all he could think was ‘thank you’. Thoughts of ‘I need you’ colored the way he kissed Cas, biting softly on his friend’s bottom lip as he pulled away.

He traded kisses back and forth between them after that, and they with each other until they were tangled up in a triangle of mouths pushing hungrily against one another. The tie on Dean’s towel loosened and it became little more than a drape over his waist as his fingers snaked their way under Sammy’s shirt, mapping out the curve of his lower back.

His left hand went up the sleeve of Cas’ t-shirt, cupping his shoulder and tickling his collar bone. The soft fuzz underneath his arm was cool and dry in the way of those creatures that could not sweat, but Dean found that it only made him marvel more at the miracle that was Castiel. He was an angel and he was theirs. They were going to have to show him that.


	15. Chapter 15

**Sam**

It was every Christmas and every birthday (only Dean had ever helped him celebrate) all wrapped up into one: this is what Sam thought as he helped his brother lift Castiel’s shirt over his head and undo his belt. Maybe they didn’t need to be naked yet, but they needed to be something closer than what they were, even if that was somewhere they hadn’t ever considered being an actual possibility before.

Sam mapped out the freckles across the bridge of Dean’s nose and cheeks and then kissed and licked the junction of his neck and shoulder. He mapped out the crinkles at the edges of Castiel’s eyes as he nuzzled the perpetually shadowed jaw, as he allowed his over shirt to be unbuttoned and his t-shirt hurled over the fan in the corner.

Now Sam knew what it felt like to have Dean’s bare chest rub against his, and he knew what Castiel tasted like. It had only half stopped raining outside and the uneven beat of water sluicing off the roof made him shiver like it was right there in the room with them, like every bit of air that touched his exposed skin was freezing compared to the men he was pressed up against. Maybe it was.

“Cas,” he heard his brother say. “Lay back.” Sam didn’t need to be told to shift himself and be ready to offer his support. He and Dean worked as a team in all things, and so it was with doubled satisfaction that he felt the angel’s stomach muscles clench under his tongue while his brother licked a stripe down Castiel’s clavicle.

He began working apart the belt buckle and those practical pants that came with the vessel, and he accepted his brother’s tongue down his throat as reward for getting that pesky bit of clothing out of the way. Kisses trailed along Cas’ thighs and in a patented Dean move, the back of his knee while Sam opted to suck gently on Cas’ fingertips.

It was incredible to hear that gravelly voice presented in a cascade of gentle moans. Cas’ hips were bucking in his white boxers and damp spot had appeared, but Sam was not prepared for how arousing it was when Dean mouthed the spot, conforming his lips to the shape of Castiel’s erection through the cloth. “Oh wow,” he said softly, cupping himself through his jeans.

“Take over for me, would ya?” he heard his brother say, digging his fingers between Sam’s underwear and his jeans. Sam obliged, enjoying the feeling of Cas’ blunt nails scratching along his scalp as he ran his mouth along the full length of the other man’s cock once before pulling down the offending article and going to town.

His lips and tongue swirled and he bobbed his head, aware of little more from the south than the feeling of cool air on his now bare legs. He glanced down towards Dean and found him staring up at them with his mouth hanging open. Dean licked his lips and brushed his fingers along the edges of Sam’s pubic hair, and though Sam couldn’t see all of Dean from where he lay he could tell that the towel had also gone missing.

Castiel was murmuring words of wonder in English as well as Enochian and Sam could catch the Winchesters’ names in there from time to time.

It was incredibly difficult not to bite down at the shock of having his brother tug gently on his balls. How the hell did Dean even know Sam was into that? Had he secretly watched Sam jerking off at some point? The thought of it made him salivate and his cock twitched right next to Dean’s mouth, encouraging more of the appreciative lick he received for his efforts.

Unfortunately Dean was never one to be told what to do, and Sam had to settle for inhaling sharply around the knob of Cas’ erection when Dean began to lick at his pebbled nipples. It tickled but it also had him squeezing his thighs to keep from losing it right on the spot. “Oh god,” he whispered, breathing heavily against Castiel’s thigh. “This is…”

“Head in the game, Sammy,” Dean said in a huff of warm air against his chest. Cas had begun trying to bend himself in two in a bid to kiss one or the other of them and so Sam obliged, letting Castiel taste his own musk on Sam’s lips. Thankfully for both of them Cas had never been a shrinking violet and he grunted into the other man’s mouth as Cas’ fingers tangled in Dean’s hair and pulled his head back up again.

He pressed Dean’s head to Sam’s so quickly that their noses bumped, then their lips brushed and they were kissing as fiercely as some of the worst fights they’d ever had, pausing only long enough to mouth at Cas’ neck and shoulders. One of Cas’ hands was tickling the space between his shoulder blades enough to make him arch, to make their cocks brush against one another. Dean pawed at the space between them, trying to bring everything closer, to wrap his fingers around all three of their erections, but even his hands weren’t big enough.

“I want to taste you,” Castiel said, and Sam had never heard his voice sound so soft or breathless. “Let me.” The sheets gathered and pooled at the bottom of the bed as Cas scooted down to the end of it and pulled both Winchesters flush against his chest, licking frantically at the heads of both of their dicks.

He brought them both together in his fists, pressing them against one another until green eyes met hazel in a wide expression of surprise, followed by a groan that centered somewhere around Sam’s solar plexus. Where was the hesitation in this man? And yet if there was one thing Sam loved it was a man who knew his way around the bedroom. Perhaps Cas had learned from the videos in the laptop history after all.

All clothes were in tangled heaps on the floor, on the electric heater, on the coffee table; it was a chilly night for all the heat radiating off of them. Sam felt goosebumps trailing up his legs and making the light hairs there stand at attention, though it might have just been the way that Cas clung to his hip and Dean ran his fingers through his hair.

He leaned forward, careful not to block the third member of their party out as he cupped Dean’s jaw and kissed him softly. Dean had to know that this wasn’t just something he wanted for the night, nor something that he needed simply because they’d nearly lost each other yet again that afternoon.

After that he sunk to his knees in front of Cas, who was still seated at the end of the bed. He cupped the scruffy cheeks in both hands and kissed him tenderly as well, grateful for everything that he had done. For all the above and beyond he had been as well as in forgiveness for all the times he’d failed. If anything it made Cas even more a part of them.

Behind Sam, Dean had gotten onto all fours and was tracing the curve of Sam’s spine, biting here and there at an expanse of muscle that took his interest. Cas went on kissing him, stroking his neck and up and down the length of his arms; Sam was hard pressed to think of a time he’d felt quite so loved.

“Get up on the bed, Sammy,” called a voice from behind him, one that featured in all of his fantasies and his nightmares as well. Cas fell onto his back, legs still dangling off the end of the bed as Dean pressed him down. “Get up there. Hand and knees.” And Sam obeyed, straddling the broad chest there until he was as exposed as could be.

He looked over his shoulder and Dean had disappeared; he looked down and saw an intense hunger in the blue eyes beneath him. Castiel took Sam into his mouth again and he cried out in surprise. His knuckles were white from where he gripped the sheets.

Then the man beneath him moaned and Sam was forced to twist and turn to try and get a good look at what was happening behind him. “Dean?” he called, trying to see beyond the curtain of his own hair and under his armpit as well. “Dean?”

“Right here, Needy,” his brother chuckled, while Cas bucked up with a muffled moan. Dean was certainly doing something back there, whatever it was.


	16. Chapter 16

**Castiel**

The hot, wet suction of Dean’s mouth around his erection was startling enough without the alien pressure of a finger working its way towards his backside. He felt it pressing at his entrance, felt the strange, thick liquid that coated the digit. Was this one of those bottles of clear fluid that the boys kept in their bags that he sometimes saw?

Castiel felt like he was going to choke, like the sensation of having his mouth filled and his member engulfed at the same time was going to steal the power right out of his body. Like some sort of spell.

“Okay, Cas?” came Dean’s voice from the end of the bed. Castiel couldn’t see him at all, but if he concentrated he could map out the shape of the room, make out the freckles that lightly dusted the elder Winchester’s back as he curved over Castiel’s hips. He could feel the finger questing at the pink ring of his behind. Dean was asking for permission to entry.

“Mmph,” he said, hoping he conveyed affirmation around the shape of Samuel Winchester’s cock. The next grunt that punched out of him was one of surprise as he felt the thick digit breach him, wiggling around inside like something that had no right to be there. There was a brief second of panic when the idea of being invaded brought him back to awful memories of when he had been inhabited by an entire race of beings, but then he looked up and he saw Sam looking back, felt Sam brush away the damp bangs to his forehead. He relaxed, squirmed a little against the foreign feeling and finally sagged when Sam laced the fingers of one hand through his own.

“Dean, Dean, what are you…” Sam was calling, and as Castiel watched his facial expression took on one of shock. “Ohmygod,” he said in a rush. “You can’t possibly be fingering Cas and have your face buried in my ass at the same time.” There was a disbelieving grin there accompanied by a forward thrust of his hips that had Castiel gagging a little. “Sorry Cas! Couldn’t help myself.”

But Castiel had little to say, for Dean had inserted a second finger and appeared to be trying to tickle his insides. Precome oozed from his now unattended member and it throbbed, it ached in the most incredible, exquisite way.

“Correction,” came Dean’s voice again from beyond his field of vision, “I was doing that. Now I’m fingering both of you and I have got to say, this is on the top five things I’ve ever done in my life.”

“Only the top five?” scoffed Sam. “Cas and I can take our little love fest elsewhere if that’s how it’s gonna be.”

“Hey, hey. We’re just gettin’ started.”

Castiel had no idea what to expect when Sam said he wanted to watch. It was just - Sam was there, covering him and thrusting shallowly into his mouth and the next thing he knew, there was a very large man standing to the side with his fist wrapped around his own cock.

Dean grinned at his brother and then climbed onto the bed, pushing Cas up towards the four pillows that came standard with a king-sized bed. California Kings are bigger, his mind supplied unhelpfully as it did with all things Dean and Sam Winchester ever said to him. Still the stream of facts was quieted as a plush, bruised mouth pressed to his and kissed him with the greatest affection he had ever been witness to in his long, long life.

“Hey there,” Dean said with a gentle smile. “You doin’ okay?”

“Yes, I believe I’m doing better than okay,” Castiel answered truthfully. He looked towards Sam, who smiled and leaned over to ruffle his hair, who kissed his forehead. The attention from both of them was almost more pleasantly suffocating than the physical aspect had been, but Dean was asking him something and it was his duty to answer.

“Do with me as you wish, Dean,” he said. “Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters.”

“This is as much for you as it is for me, Cas,” Dean assured him, all the while hiking up Castiel’s legs so that his knees were splayed to either side of his chest. “And it’s certainly not gonna involve any bleeding unless someone bites too hard. I’m gonna put my dick inside you now, okay? And it’s gonna feel a little weird at first, but if you can hang on ‘til the good bits it’s gonna be out of this world. You good with that?”

The head of Dean’s cock pressed against his entrance just as the fingers had done and, without really even thinking about it, Castiel nodded. It was weird; it felt like too large by half and he was stretching, struggling to accommodate Dean’s girth. On and on it went, filling and pushing for moments before Dean was seated all the way inside of him.

He could feel balls resting against his backside and his own erection had flagged somewhat in the required concentration. Sam, who was palming and tugging on himself in a game of pushing towards and then away from orgasm, reached for the bottle of liquid.

“Lube,” he explained, and then he was massaging it down Castiel’s length pleasurably enough that his hips lifted straight off the bed and Dean moaned outright. “Move,” he said to his brother, “Or he’ll never relax.” Sam was true to his word, murmuring words of encouragement and the occasional stage direction, stroking himself lazily as he watched them kiss and rut.

Eventually Castiel was aware of the mechanics enough to press his heels against the bed and slide back and forth, enjoying the slow build of an approaching orgasm of his own. It felt as though he could be happy forever never reaching that peak, only tingling in little electric shocks of ecstasy that spread inward from his erection all the way to his fingers and toes.

Dean pulled out and flipped him onto his front, hips propped up in the air and Castiel’s face buried in the sheets. They smelled of industrial cleaner, sweat and the musky smell of sex even though no one had ejaculated yet. It was the smell of their arousal, they three in their heightened state of lust and need, and Castiel found that he wanted to scoop up handfuls of the sheets and press them to his nose just to take it all in. Or he would have if he wasn’t panting mindlessly, reduced to drooling if only because he couldn’t close his mouth for all the keening and crying out.

Eventually Sam shifted around from the far side of the bed towards the sofa, coming into view in the one eye that wasn’t currently mashed against the mattress along with his right cheek. He saw the slick length of Sam’s cock inches from his mouth and twisted to reach it, though he only succeeded in catching it with the tip of his tongue.

“Oh god Cas,” he heard the taller man saying, while a rough groan and a snap of his hips answered his gesture from behind. Sam climbed onto the bed and cradled Castiel’s chin, his leg hairs tickling his collarbone and against his nipples. With the utmost care he guided himself into Castiel’s mouth and with a shock he realized that the three of them had completed a circuit, for the brothers were kissing over top of his back while they filled him at both ends. He fought to accommodate Sam’s length and succeeded only in half-choking himself, but managed an awkwardly-angled grip around the base to steady himself further.

“Cas, Cas, stop I’m gonna -” Sam said, scrambling back with a look nearing full-blown shock. His eyes darted between Castiel and what was undoubtedly Dean, who seemed to take it as a cue to jackhammer into him with well-practiced force. The rough cries were being torn from Cas’ throat, vibrating at the pace at which Dean thrusted.


	17. Chapter 17

**Dean**

He’d been out of his mind to agree to what they were doing when he’d first seen them making out like teenagers earlier that night, but he was insane to agree to what they’d gotten set up now. Why the hell did he have to bottom, anyway? Dean was not - oof - a bottom by rote. Not that he took guys for a spin that often, of course, but trying to sink back onto the bed and stare up at his little brother’s face with his little brother’s not so little fingers up his ass was something else entirely. “Sam,” he huffed, “Sam, hang on.”

The fingers slowed but made no move to withdraw. “I, uh - I just wanted to say -” What did he want to say? Thank you? Cas appeared over Sam’s shoulder, slunk a hand around Sam’s waist and began to stroke both brothers’ erections together. He was smiling so fondly, looking between them almost proudly, and Dean couldn’t reconcile the amount of guilt he was supposed to be feeling with the adoring, messy glances that Sam and Cas were throwing at him just then. “Just wanna say, uh, a-and you too Cas, I mean, you’ve been a rock, and -”

“It’s okay Dean,” said Sam. “You’re safe, you’re with us and I for one can say I feel the exact same way. I can say it out loud if you want. Cas already said it, actually.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed into slits as his face tightened; he had nowhere else to put the emotions trying to form on them. _No wait_ , he thought. _I’m not ready_ –

“I love you, Dean.” Sam held his gaze for a steady heartbeat and then resumed his exploration of Dean’s insides, while Cas kissed along Sam’s shoulders and down his biceps fondly. Apparently being exposed and penetrated made him all sorts of receptive and Dean couldn’t decide whether he wanted to repeat the experience again right away or never again.

The decision was largely made for him when he wrapped his palms over his knees, hiked them up to his chest and watched the awe-filled, almost reverent look on Sam’s face as he pushed his way inside. God but that boy was too hung for his own good. Dean’s back arched involuntarily and he gritted his teeth against the intrusion, shifting so that Sam could grab his hips and get more comfortable.

He got to watch the marvel happen all over again when Sam closed his eyes with a look of concentration and breathed shallowly through his mouth as Cas pressed inside him from behind. It was a beautiful thing, if he was admitting it to himself, and he reached out to stroke Cas’ side and then cup his Sammy’s cheek.

It was his own fault for suggesting that Dean was being too rough on their angel, given that it was his first time and all. Dean suspected that a commander in the lord’s armies was more than capable of taking a pounding no matter what form that came in, but Cas had declared that he wanted to try to opposite end of the equation and Sam had said that he wanted to be inside Dean. He’d looked just like a lovesick puppy when he asked, so cautious and hopeful as if Dean would break just at the mention of the idea.

The truth was he’d blushed all over and nearly cum all over Cas’ back. “So, how’s it feel to be the center of this sandwich, Sam?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood and ignore the uncomfortable twinge between his cheeks resulting from his brother forgetting to move.

“It feels,” Sam began, groping for the words. “It feels right. It feels incredible.” And with that he pressed in for the first time and pulled out again most of the way, using the momentum to slide down onto Cas. The surprised moan that earned was worth the hot drag inside of him.

The pace was slow-going at first as they tried to work out a rhythm between them, but as they figured it out Dean had to reach for the headboard to steady himself. He learned that quickly enough after he’d smacked his head against the wood hard enough to clack his teeth together.

It was pretty incredible watching Cas’ arms curl up and around Sam’s chest, curving up under his arms and latching onto his shoulders like a backpack. It seemed that for a beginner, Cas was a quick learner that had the slap-slap-slap of his hips hitting at a speed that would surely leave Sam bruised in the morning. Dean benefitted from the increased force, both from Sam and indirectly from the man inside of Sam and how erotic was that?

Dean moaned unabashedly after that, spurring both of them on with praises and challenges. “I’m not gonna break if you fuck me harder you know,” he said at one point, then a stream of, “Oh shit, oh my god, yeah, oh god oh god that’s it, that’s it.”

Cumming happened completely out of nowhere and Dean saw stars as his cock twitched and jerked, spurting all over his stomach, chest and even on his chin from where he was bent nearly in half. Sam discreetly pulled out so that he didn’t disturb Cas from his own pursuit of an orgasm and stared heatedly into Dean’s eyes as he jerked himself off, spraying all over Dean’s stomach again to mix with the cum already pooling there.

From behind him he could hear Cas saying, “Sam, I’m sorry I can’t hold on -” and then he cut off, letting out a long groan that was possibly the most arousing sound he’d ever heard. Just the sound of Cas falling apart was enough to make Dean wish for a round two, but instead he ducked his head and tried to see under Sam’s arm to figure out what had just happened.

Sam was smiling wryly as he allowed Cas to pull out, then untangled himself from the center of them and disappeared into the bathroom with his hand cupping one ass cheek. Dean didn’t even bother trying to move, even though he knew that the white stuff covering his chest and stomach would dry and grow uncomfortable.

His heart was beating so loudly he could hear the blood rushing past his ears and yet all he could think of was how unfettered by pain or stress or worry he was right then. It was as if all of the bad things chasing him, the ones that never let up even in his dreams, had been banished to another realm. They’d be back, sure, but never before had they been so at bay.

“How are you feeling, Dean?” Cas asked over the sound of running water in the bathroom. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. You okay?”

“I am far better than okay,” Cas said, running sweaty fingers through equally sweaty hair. “I had no idea that sexual relations were as pleasurable as that. It really explains a great deal of why the porn industry is so lucrative.”

Dean laughed and kissed him gently on the mouth. “Don’t ever change, Cas,” he said, closing his eyes until he felt a wet towel running over his chest and thighs. “Sam, is that you?”

“Yeah,” came a deep voice just to the right of his shoulder. “You good?”

“Never been better. Coming to bed soon?”

“Yeah, I just. Uh. Need to clean up a little. My insides are currently full of angel spunk.” And maybe Dean shouldn’t have snorted but it was funny, and now that he was clean he could pull Sammy down next to him on one side and press his hand to the small of Cas’ back to keep him close and that was all he could ever hope for in the world, all the reward he needed for soldiering on. When he slept that night, he had no nightmares.


	18. Chapter 18

**Jack**

Jack Morrison was out for his morning constitutional down on Waldo Road, even though it crossed the path of water and people weren’t supposed to go near any of those anymore. Not since that washer lady had come back, and Jack had been in his twenties when she’d come around last time.

It was 1956 and his girlfriend, the late Betty who’d been his wife for 50 years before she passed, had been wigging out about it just like the rest of the town. Now, Betty had been a swell chick but she was a bit kooky at times and Jack hadn’t believed a word of the rumors about the washerwoman anyway. Besides, it had gotten him in with Betty when he offered to walk her home at night during the big scare there, and he couldn’t help but be grateful for the help convincing her to be his steady. They’d married the following spring and the way Jack looked at it, the washer had maybe even done him a service. He’d shake her hand if he ever met her.

Shoulda thought that one out, he thought to himself as he approached the bridge and saw a figure bent at the spongy morning banks of the stream. Away she went, scrubbing out these white sheets that folks said were the shrouds of those who were supposed to die. Not like she killed them herself, not personally (although some people said she did), just those who had it coming and soon. Well wasn’t that a bite? He shrugged and shifted his dentures around in his mouth a little, then turned off the road and went to stand beside her.

Ooh, boy she was a looker. That mottled skin and that single nostril sticking right out of the middle of her face? Jack had his work cut out for him. “‘Lo. Chilly morning, isn’t it? Wonder if we aren’t due for a snowstorm soon.”

Her rheumy eyes regarded him from the side and fair enough it was disgusting, but time made fools of everyone and it wasn’t enough to put him off the coffee he’d had earlier at the church breakfast. Gnarled hands slowed in their scrubbing and she gave a little sigh before she said, “Winter roars awful frae bank to brae when a’ the hills are covered with snaw, but autumn’s a beauty. Pleasant weather to view a’ the charms of nature, an’ nae season so dear to me.”

That was surprising enough news, given the bareness of her chest. He thought he could make out what she was saying, but suspected he’d have a doozy of a headache if he kept up trying to make conversation. “I prefer spring, but each to their own I suppose. Hey, do you suppose I could ask you a question? I can understand if a lady needs to keep her secrets, but, here goes: Why’d you come to Scotland in the 50s? Why are you here now?”

She paused in her washing but not completely. Even as the rest of her sat stock still her fingers were still fiddling in minute, unwilling movements. If the old stories were true Jack guessed she was never going to be able to stop washing, not until Kingdom Come. Sounded like a rotten deal if you asked him. “‘Twas nae me,” she mumbled.

“What?” His hearing had been going in the last few years and he stuck his pinky in the good one to try and get some better reception from this supernatural woman sitting next to him on an October morning.

“‘Twas the Fuller clan’s weeper. Sin auld lang syne the weepers hae served their clans, tho’ fain would they desert their posts. Peevish an’ jealous, doylt an’ dozin’ as ever folk hae been, killin’ their rivals. Tak pity on a poor soul, Jack Morrison, I maun do something for my bread.”

Being addressed by his name took him aback (as did most of the words that came out of her mouth) but he found it in him to nod and tap her on the forearm in a feeble gesture of comfort.

He remembered the Fuller boy, just a few years younger than him. Disappeared the last few weeks before Christmas and everyone had said he’d run off to some exotic country to start a new life with a girl from a not-so-reputable family. Others had said he was the last victim of the washerwoman, which seemed more likely now that this lady was confirming it for him. Always been a jealous petty creature, that Fuller boy.

“So every clan has their own weeper woman?” He looked into the water, trying to process all of this information. Most interesting thing Jack’d heard in nigh on five years, he thought. She’d begun scrubbing away at the sheets again with extra fervor, like she had to make up for lost time. Jack had used to feel that way on the assembly line and his weak old ticker twinged with sympathy.

“Aye,” she agreed, and seemed to be very sad about it. He supposed if she had no choice in the matter that it was a very pitiful situation indeed, or he thought so until he realized his name was embroidered on the edge of the sheet, swishing in and out of view under the cold, clear water of the stream. Jack Morrison.

“Oh,” he said, that little bit of fear tingling through his heart again. “Oh.”

He took a step back and stumbled, clutching at his chest. It hurt in this horrible, squeezing way. Should have known better than to go talking to a washer woman. Betty would have snapped her cap for sure if she’d known what a fool he was going to be without her around to keep his head on straight.

He smiled through the pain and then kept smiling even as he collapsed to the ground and stared up at the grey clouds in the morning sky. There was definitely snow coming in, whatever that washer lady said. Good thing he wouldn’t be around to see it though - or better yet, shovel it; he was on his way to see his favorite gal after five long years. “Thanks for the chat,” he wheezed with his final breath.

 

 

**Sam**

  
Everyone in their party was squirming the following morning as they walked into the diner. Dean was even more bow-legged than usual and Sam was having trouble believing that they’d chosen to show their face in the same establishment as the day before even if it was just for a cup of coffee. Damn Dean and his tongue-in-cheek comments about threesomes.

With a yawn he settled back into the green-backed booth and blinked across at Cas, who was glancing back and forth between the two brothers with a look of concern crossed with amusement. So maybe not everyone was feeling that uncomfortable; Sam had forgotten that nice little angelic side-effect of speed healing when he’d suggested Dean let up on him a little. He certainly wouldn’t go easy on him the next time, which was whenever his brother decided to work through his deeply buried issues.

Sam gave it less than a month, but would prefer to be openly affectionate sooner rather than later if given the choice. Give him time, Sam. He yawned again and wiped the tears out of the corners of his eyes.

“Back again, are you?” asked the same waitress as the morning before as she bent over their booth. Her hair was natural that morning, Sam noticed, rather than in the braids she’d had them in yesterday. Wilma, her tag read, and she seemed far too young for such a name. She grinned over at her betting partner, who was serving an elderly couple asking about getting their oatmeal mushier than the standard. “Thought for sure we’d scared you off after that display yesterday.”

“No,” Cas assured her. “On the contrary, I feel that it functioned as excellent social lubricant. We should be thanking you.”

“Coffee please,” Sam said as he coughed into his complimentary glass of water. “Black as you can get it.”

“Same,” Dean said, “And Cas -”

“Belgian waffle, caramel ice cream. Is your lemonade fresh-squeezed?”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look of bafflement while Wilma confirmed that yes, it was. He went on to order ham, sausage and an egg-white omelette and then sat back with a sigh. “Well,” said Dean, “I was going to say you couldn’t order anything because you used the word lubricant in a sentence, but you seem to have gotten half the menu.”

“Yeah,” Sam cut in, “I mean, I appreciate the gesture but I had a bunch of leftover spanakopita earlier and I’m kinda full.”

Castiel tilted his head in that way that always made Sam feel like he was the non-resident of Earth. Sam felt himself smiling against his will; it had grown more endearing after the previous night. “I’m sorry Sam, I don’t understand. I didn’t order you anything.”

It was Dean’s turn to snort in amusement and he patted Cas on the back before tossing out a disparaging comment on Sam’s eating habits. “As you may recall - and this is why we ended up sharing beds in the first place - we’re not doing so hot for cash. Why’d you have to go an -”

“Shh.” Castiel brought a finger up to his lips and then gestured to the old couple in the corner. Sam hunched over subconsciously as he had done most of his life in a failed attempt to be less conspicuous and listened.

“Fifth death in a week, and poor old Jacky Morrison no less. You remember when he used to go around town with Betty Garner on his arm like he was king of the roost, don’t ya? Great lad, that Jacky. Really gonna miss him, whether it was the washer woman or not.”

“Well, at our age it’s just too hard to tell if it was a proper heart attack or something more sinister. That’s the scary thing, if you ask me.” The elderly man was gesturing with his oatmeal spoon, flicking specks of oat here and there with each punctuated word.

Dean was shuffling his booth mate out of the way before he’d even caught the end of the sentence, leaving his coffee unattended as it arrived while he was over chatting with the other patrons. Sam wasted no time in burning his tongue on his own rich brew. “What’d you hear, Cas?”

“An elderly male was discovered by the bridge on Waldo street. He passed from an apparent heart attack due to old age, but you and I both know that to be an unlikely scenario.”

Sam nodded, staring down into his coffee as the little clouds of foam on top bubbled away into nothing. His stomach churned with the idea that they had been lying curled up in one another’s arms few short hours before when the man may have found himself victim to the washer woman’s curse. Heck, why lie? With their luck it was definitely the bean nighe. “You okay?” he asked Castiel, because Dean sure as hell wasn’t going to be okay with that. Guilt came as easy for Dean as breathing.

To his surprise, the angel nodded. “It occurs to me that acts of love and devotion require no apologies. Until we figure out who is behind this, there’s very little we can do to stop the bean nighe.”

“Good point Cas,” said Dean, looking very much like he disagreed. He stared over at the stack of pancakes that arrived soon after and sullenly began stealing one forkful at a time. Sam could only be grateful that it wasn’t whisky. “You know, I say we go back there and we ask that biatch why she’s doing this, who sent her. I’ve had about enough about this laundromat of death crap.”

He folded his arms over his chest, shoved his fork away with his fingers and set his head down on the newly-cleared space. Cas speared a sausage and chewed away, unphased but for the slight crease between his eyebrows.

“And just which one of us is going to ask her the questions?” Sam asked. “Which one of us is gonna put his heart on the line this time?” Which one of us has made the most peace with his sins, he meant to say. None of the three of them answered at first, each of the three drifting off towards a suddenly fascinating spot on the Formica table top.

“I’ll do it,” said Dean, downing his coffee in one go. He stared Cas down, tilting his head impatiently towards his leftovers, and raised a hand for the check.

“And just why do you think that would be the best idea?” Sam shot back, trying to avoid seeing exactly how much food Cas could stuff in his mouth at a time. Guy didn’t even have a proper digestive system and already he was proving to be a bottomless pit ...although he was vaguely intrigued by the idea of an insatiable Castiel. “Whoever answers these questions has the possibility of getting their arms ripped off and dying. This is not okay.”

“I could do it,” said Cas.

“No you couldn’t,” barked Dean in return, waggling a very brotherly finger. “You had a legion of souls trapped in you and we don’t want you leaking out the secrets of the universe. Not. Cool.”

“Well then fine,” Sam said just as their waitress reappeared. “I can do it.” He leaned towards Wilma and smiled long enough to grab his wallet out. “Don’t suppose you’ve got another bet for us to win, do you Wilma?”

He earned an eye roll for his troubles. “Not unless you’re looking to change your answer from yesterday. Today’s was a cool twenty on whether the quiet one would make it through everything he ordered.” Castiel glanced up at her between spooned mouthfuls of melted ice cream and shrugged, absolving himself from all explanation for his actions. He’d definitely learned that from Dean.

“If he makes it through the week we’ll consider getting him a career in competitive eating,” Dean agreed. “Earn his keep or something.”

“I don’t suppose you have any bets going on how to stop the killings over in Scotland, do you?”

Wilma looked startled by the question and Dean shot him a warning look, but she answered. “Legend has it the thing only comes for people descended directly from the old clans. I dunno, my family’s from Boston and once upon a time were forced over here from Africa. Got nothing to do with me. Don’t you boys go messing with things you don’t know about, okay? It’s too dangerous and you’re growing on us, whether or not you actually are a package deal.”

“We’ll do our best,” Castiel said, flashing her a smile. He gestured to the stack of empty plates on the table and gave her a thumbs up. Dean looked like he was about to crawl under the table.


	19. Chapter 19

**Dean**

He waited until they were outside the diner to announce to Sam that he himself would undergo the question trial and no one else. “Why? Because you’ve already had your mind broken once, Sam. Not to mention the bean nighe killed you yesterday, so no. You’re not doing it, he’s not doing it, I’m doing it.”

Dean’s blood was boiling with the idea of the two people he had left throwing themselves into harm’s way and he wasn’t going to put up with it. He might be convinced to hop into bed with them, and hell yeah he would do anything they asked of him to keep them happy, but letting them head towards certain death? No, no way. He punctuated this thought with an accidental honk of the horn. “Sorry Baby,” he said to the Impala, “You know I didn’t mean it.”

“I think it’s a ridiculous idea altogether,” Castiel chimed in as they pulled out of the diner parking lot. “We could attempt to suckle at her breast and become her foster children, then she’d have to protect us.”

“If I could stomach that, you know I would,” Dean called back. He wouldn’t though. He really wouldn’t. “Any info on the exact steps we need to get this chick into question mode?”

“Already on it,” Sam said, flipping through his smart phone with one hand and hanging onto the lap top with another. It was disturbing to discover that as a side effect of the last night’s activities, just the sight of Sam’s huge paw-like hands got Dean all riled up. It was that thought that made him jump when Cas’ fingers curled into the short hair at the back of his head a moment later.

“Cas?”

“You look unsettled, Dean,” he said, stroking along Dean’s cheek with his fingertips. They were softer than Sam’s, whose own hands had grown calloused after Stanford between the guns and knives and hard labor of shifting dead bodies. “I want to help you.”

Just the knowledge that Cas’ fingers would never change, that Cas himself was unchanging by virtue of nigh immortality, that was enough help for Dean. He wanted someone he couldn’t break or destroy or fail utterly and completely. Oh Christ, this question thing was going to be a disaster. “I’m fine.”

“Do you suppose it is related to the nightmares you’ve been having so frequently?” The fingers were up by his temple then, smoothing away the tension there. Dean stopped at a light and sighed.

“It’s nothing, it’s just. Uh. Crap about Dad.”

Sam’s head whipped around to face his brother. “You’ve been dreaming about Dad?”

“No. Well, yeah, but it’s nothing. Just same old subconscious mumbo-jumbo as always.”

“But do you think it’s some kind of spell? Do you think it’s the bean nighe doing this to you?”

Dean shook his head. “It’s been going on for longer than that. Just about the time that Cas showed up again, I think. Thought I’d lost him in Purgatory and -” he drifted off, unable or unwilling to continue. He wasn’t entirely sure which.

“So what does this dream Dad do, exactly? Does he talk to you?”

“Sometimes, but I’m usually fighting off hordes of monsters while he tells me what a crappy son I’ve been. Looks like we’ve found the site of the old guy’s death.”

By the bridge on Waldo a team of local police and a few of the members of the community were gathered around, drinking paper cups of coffee and breathing clouds of white into the cold air. There were tracks where a heavy vehicle, likely an ambulance or a coroner’s van, had already driven away with the body. Jack, the old couple had said. Jack Morrison. Lived through the bean nighe in the 50s only to be taken now. To Dean that just spoke of a change in management.

They pulled the Impala onto the shoulder and climbed out with Dean silencing Sam’s attempts to Talk. Castiel said nothing, but Dean was certain he felt a gentle squeeze of his palm by those soft fingers again before he went to talk to the officials.

  
George was there again, Dean realized with a start. “Still alive,” Sam whispered. “Pretty suspicious, don’t you think?”

“‘Bout as suspicious as it gets, Sammy.” But Cas had beaten them to it, head already bent over conspiratorially as he discussed the details with Mr. Magoon. Without warning they watched as the man’s face grew red and pinched, then he fell to his knees and pulled his novelty tam from his balding head. He was sobbing openly, clinging to Castiel’s pant legs in an attempt to stop from falling over.

Dean and Sam were among many who came over to see if he was alright. Worse than that was the nagging worry that the bean nighe might have finally caught up to him and they were about to watch a man die.

“Why me?” George cried, broad chest heaving with emotion. “Why am I still alive and little twelve year old girls are dying around here? How many more people are we going to lose before all of this is over? Poor Jack, poor Jack!”

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance while Castiel calmly crouched and patted the man’s back. The townspeople who had gathered around had shifted from panic to awkwardness, trying to avoid the spectacle of a grown man broken down from the stress of the situation. Cas alone was unphased and patient, and although Dean knew Cas’ wings weren’t actually visible, he could almost see them unfurling around the angel like a true Messenger of the Lord.

“That Angus is something else, huh,” Sam commented, not bothering to hide the fond expression that had taken over his face.

“Sure is. I don’t freakin’ get this, man. I was sure that we had a connection with this guy, especially since he keeps showing up everywhere. There’s gotta be something we’re missing here.”

They watched in contemplative silence for a minute or two more before George rose to his feet and scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his jacket sleeves. Cas patted him on the shoulder once more with a nod and a smile and returned to his spot in the trio with a low announcement of, “It’s not him, whoever it is. He was genuinely sorrowful and did not know who might be behind this. It’s just as we learned last night.”

“I still can’t shake the feeling that he has something to do with it, but I’ll listen to you,” Dean said, heading back to the car with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

 

“So when she shows, we’ve gotta get between her and the water. That’s how we get her to start the question game,” Sam said with his face mere inches from the laptop screen. Dean reached over and pushed his face away, declaring it bad for his eyes. They were parked in the space where Mary Allen had died with the hopes that the washer woman would return; it offered enough space to maneuver while having less space for her to escape than the swamp area where George and Will had run into her.

“You need new glasses or something?” The end of the question rose sharply as Sam chased his fingertips away and kissed them. Dean was stunned; getting used to the easy affection that the other two seemed to be looking for was difficult enough without the added pressure of being stuck in a car with them waiting for an evil fairy for what felt like the umpteenth time that week.

“No, just trying to make sure there aren’t any details hidden. We can’t afford to mess this up - like you said, last time we went up against her one of us died.”

“I think I should be the one to distract her while you get between her and the water,” Castiel announced. As always he had his hands folded in his lap and his head tilted just that little bit to the side. Dean thought he could see galaxies shifting behind the man’s bright blue eyes, analyzed and dismissed while he continued to sit in that zen-like state. “I’m more than likely immune to whatever magic she possesses and if I am unable to undertake the trial, I’m more than happy to make myself useful in other ways.”

“You’re always useful,” Sam told him, looking to Dean to get a confirmative nod. “You’re ours, Cas. You’re a part of us.”

The angel nodded jerkily and reached for John’s notebook, flipping through it once again for information on getting rid of a bean nighe. “You know, some of the fairies in this book were summoned by musical instruments,” he murmured. “This one was brought in by a flute, and another by a violin.”

He looked up from the book briefly and their eyes met, and it made Dean’s breath catch in his throat. Damn his eyes were blue, and the way that Cas looked at him was always a punch to the chest - so self-sacrificing and determined, so willing to keep up the fight as long as it was a Winchester asking. Watching him Dean recalled Cas threatening to off himself if he ever went back upstairs, sometime before he had declared his desire to be a hunter. It had just been the two of them one night, sitting on motel beds while Sam was out.

Dean wondered for a moment as Cas’ eyes returned to his book with whatever they should have said brushed away for the time being - he wondered if it hadn’t been he who had taught Cas to ball it all up and keep it inside, and if he was then he was as much of a disappointment as Purgatory Dad said he was. For once in his life he hoped he could get things right; if not with Sam and Cas, then who?

“There she is! There she is,” Sam chanted in a low, rushed voice. “We’ve got her. This is it.”

“Showtime boys,” Dean whooped as he climbed out of the car. Screaming head first into the abyss made the pants-shitting terror quiet down a bit and that was just fine by him if that’s what it took to get through the day.

“Hey assface!” Cas called, and hey, not bad. He was improving his insults little by little. Cas picked up a rock and chucked it at her, bouncing it off one of those stomach-churning mammary glands of the washerwoman’s. Horf.

Dean sped down the hill to the left just as she turned head and shoulders towards the right, hands never leaving the water. How was he supposed to get in between if she wouldn’t even leave? “Go go go!” shouted Sam, taking the path through the center at the speed of a lumbering moose. “Cas and I have got this!”

The haggard old woman shrieked as Sam got his hands around her and yanked her bodily away from the water. “Don’t let her go Cas, don’t let her go! She might vanish like she did last time! Keep an eye on those sheets!”

Dean splashed straight into the cold, quick-running water and heaved the heavy white cloth out of the stream. Cas appeared to be working some sort of binding spell on her while the creature hissed and kicked in Sam’s grasp, head butting him right in the mouth. He grinned red and wet at Dean and refused to let go. Atta boy, Sammy, he thought.

“Martha Baker?” He blinked as he read the edge of the shroud he’d dragged up. The washerwoman was shrieking now, her long, gnarled fingers trying to gouge out Cas’ eyes. “That last name isn’t even Scottish is it?”

“Nelson is hardly Scottish either,” Sam huffed, spitting out a bit of bloodied saliva. “Just those of Scottish descent, remember?”

Right, Dean. Focus. “Hey lady! Look! I’m between you and your precious washing. Whatcha gonna do about it?”

Her filmy eyes turned to him, piercing him and holding him in place. Dean swallowed the uncomfortable knowledge that he may have just seriously stepped in it but held his place. “Nae mair o’ the games when surly winter is near,” she croaked. “If ye would ask, I bid ye mind wha’ ye’ll be asked.”

She fixed him with a glare and Sam relaxed his grip, moving back to stand near Cas. From the corner of his eye he could see his brother’s clothes black and green with moss and mold and clung to the idea of a shower later on. His heart gave a nervous leap as he thought of being included in that shower, but he banished that away for if he survived this thing.

No pressure. If you don’t answer completely truthfully, she’s just gonna murder you with a voodoo bed sheet.

It was the same sort of feeling he got whenever his world was about to go to hell, sometimes literally. He spread his arms wide in a come-at-me gesture and said, “Ask away. I’m ready.”

“A hunter sind thy early years, Dean Winchester. Ye’ve hae little choice but strife. What makes a hunter’s great regret?”

Dean’s eyes grew round as saucers. How the hell was he supposed to answer when he had absolutely no idea what the old broad was saying? He glanced towards the other two but Sam seemed to share his sentiment. It was Castiel who said, “She’s asking what you regret the most.”

Ha. That was easy. He’d made peace with the great love affair of self-loathing he carried with him everywhere. “I regret letting down every person I’ve ever loved, and that my best hasn’t ever been good enough. No matter how goddamn much I try to keep the people in my life alive, they die over and over again. In my dreams, if not in reality. I regret not getting there fast enough, not being the one to take the bullet, not being the one to take the leap because I think too often that I know what the hell I’m doing. Truth is I have no idea most of the time, so. I, uh. I regret not being enough of a man, of a person, for those who matter to me. That’s what I regret the most.”

Whatever he thought speaking like that was going to do to him, it wasn’t something akin to indigestion. He felt all hot and unsettled inside, like he had to burp or else a bit of bile was going to come up his throat to spite his tongue. He met her weighted gaze and stayed put while she considered.

“What love ha’e ye for thy father?”

A shot of ice ran through that hot feeling within him and he stared, unblinking, at a pile of stones gathered on the hillside for long moments. “She said -” Cas began, but Dean cut him off. He knew what she’d said, it was just that he had to get it as completely honest as possible or else he’d be down two limbs and a whole lot of blood.

“That’s a tough one, lady. I mean he rescued us in his final act, and I think that’s supposed to mean he loved me but I. Ha, here it comes - I have a hard time believing it. Growing up I...I don’t know. He stole my life and Sammy’s life just as ol’ Yellow Eyes stole our mother’s. He could’ve been a regular guy, regular single dad, let us grow up normal like Mom would’ve wanted. Could’ve let Sammy be a kid even if he couldn’t let me.” His eyes were watering but he brushed the tears away with hasty thumbs. His jaw was shaking it was clenched so tightly. “He used to be my hero, but after he fucked with Sammy I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t trust him, couldn’t believe the kind of secrets he’d kept from us. He just didn’t know how to be enough for the people who needed him. And I hate him for that, because that’s who I became too. Maybe someday I’ll understand, but I sure as hell don’t right now.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Castiel**

Sam was standing next to him as silently as if they were at a funeral. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, his nose was running and his hands were squeezing one another hard enough that his knuckles had turned white.

Castiel, on the other hand, stood stock still for other reasons. To him it felt more like a salute, because he’d known all along what kind of skeletons Dean carried in his closet and it had made him love the man all the more. His silence was out of respect, because as he stood there he knew he couldn’t have admitted the same without jamming his angel blade through his own throat.

He looked over at Sam out of the corner of his eye and let a hand rest gently on the other man’s side; surely Sam was also hurting for the loss of both of their childhoods. What could Castiel do but wish for that happy youth too, for there never to have been a reason for either Winchester to meet him?

That was what love did to people, he supposed. That was why he tried to steel himself against the answer he knew was coming when he heard the third question: Wha will ye save if they be struck t’ die, Samuel Winchester or Castiel?”

Dean’s legs wobbled as if they might fail him, but he stood and cleared his throat in a long, rasping noise borne of a defeat against the silent sobs that wracked his body. Surely his father had been contentious enough; Castiel saw the plea in Dean’s stance. _Surely I’ve given enough for this. Don’t make me choose_. That it would be that difficult for him to answer was answer enough. “She’s asking who I’d save, right? If you were both gonna die?”

“Yes,” Castiel called out, not bothering to offer words of comfort. He couldn’t influence Dean’s decision or all was lost. Sam, on the other hand, seemed not to think of that.

“It’s okay Dean,” Sam croaked out. “I’ve done enough things in my time that I would want you to choose Cas. It’s okay. I love you and I would never resent you for that.”

“Sam,” Dean sighed in the most heartbroken voice Castiel had ever heard him use. “You know I would never let that happen to you. You know I couldn’t.”

And the elder Winchester turned back towards the washerwoman, wrapped his arms around his chest and said, “I’d like to believe that if it ever came to that I’d put a bullet in my brain and tell them both I’d see them on the other side. I want to believe that.” He shook and said again, “I want. To. Believe. That. But the truth is the first promise I ever made, the promise I make to myself every day of my life is to protect Sammy, and without him there is no me. I love Cas, but there’s something with Sam that even love can’t touch. I can’t name it. I’d have to choose Sam if offing myself wasn’t on the books, and it has nothing to do with how much I care about Cas.”

Sam was a complete wreck beside Castiel, only then he wasn’t there anymore. He’d wrapped his arms around his brother and was kissing his face, scooping the not inconsiderable frame of Dean off the ground and hugging him with fierce, multi-layered affection. Neither of them seemed interested in hearing whether or not the bean nighe accepted their answer, because in the next moment they both had their arms wrapped around Castiel and were smothering him with their hot, moist air.

Castiel’s cheek was jammed against Sam’s coat pocket, his nose pressed into the worn leather of Dean’s jacket. Dean was whispering how sorry he was like a mantra and Sam was telling him that he was loved, but precious little of that mattered: he’d known that Sam took precedent from the moment he’d pulled Dean out of Hell. Sam Winchester always took precedent over Castiel’s own safety regarding himself, so it certainly didn’t offend him.

What he said was, “When I said that I’m always happy to bleed for the Winchesters, I meant it. I’m happy to experience any love I receive from either of you and that is enough for me.”

By the stream the hag was growing frustrated, stuck in some sort of limbo where she still owed Dean his three questions but wanted to get back to her now unobstructed washing. “Ask!” she screamed, waving her mottled fists in the air. “Ask or ne’er trouble me again!”

“Ask her, uh, how to get rid of her, who summoned her and how we can prevent her return?” hissed Sam. He kept glancing over his shoulder, eyeing the woman like she was about to escape.

“I’m not sure that third question is a good idea. What if there is no way to -”

“Se do marbhphaisg,” the bean nighe crooned softly, gathering the shroud she’d been working on in her hands. She hadn’t returned it to the cold water but was turning it and stroking it like her very own child. “Se do marbhphaisg ga mi nigheadh, fiuran.”

“What the hell! What the hell is she saying? Where’d the weird old English go?”

“She’s singing,” Castiel said, pulling away from their ill-timed hug. Emotional displays at a time like this were going to get them killed and Castiel had no guarantees on how many times he could bring them back. He squinted and dug into his troves of information, searching for a Scottish Gaelic dictionary. “She’s saying it’s your shroud, your death shroud that I am washing, sapling. No, not sapling in this case - handsome youth. Na cuir lamh air! Na suath na rudan agam!”

The bean nighe’s wrinkled head turned right around to look at them, wide-eyed and unblinking. “Whoa, Cas,” Dean said. “That was unexpectedly hot, but you having a conversation in a foreign language isn’t gonna help me get through this. Let’s just get this over with. Besides, I thought the poor herb lady’s name was on that.” He wiped at his eyes one more time and walked back down the hill to face the washerwoman.

Clearing his throat, he asked, “Who is your master - who summoned you here?” Castiel sighed to cover his anxiousness and hoped that would count as a single question.

“I canna tell, I maun protect her frae harm by my sooth.” Dean frowned in confusion and she tried again in some tiny gesture of apology: “I tell the truth.”

“Did she say ‘her’, guys? As in, the washer’s master is a mistress?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Sam, frowning. “She did.”

“Second question then, although I do think not being able to answer should be against the rules.” Dean clapped his hands together and widened his stance. “Here goes. What object, be it book or instrument or other, summoned you here?”

She nodded, almost eager to answer him. Perhaps her hand was forced in the matter? After all, Castiel had read that she was primarily a harbinger of death, not a cause of it. “Twas a clarsach! A - a harp!”

“A harp! Holy crap, it must have been one of the girls at the competition that first day!” Sam was jittery with the discovery, shifting from one foot to another, torn between staying for the third question and running back to the car. “We just need to look over the contestant list again and we’ll have this in the bag!”

“Wait,” said Castiel, not moving from his spot. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his trench coat and despite the chill wind passing through his Guns ‘n’ Roses t-shirt, he did not shiver. He watched Dean, who stood stock still except for the foot that was kicking fitfully at a rock. “Your brother’s got one more question to ask.”

“When we, uh, send you back to your realm. Is there any way to keep you there?” He asked, then rushed to finish with “And if so how, I mean.”

The hag shook her head. “I ken no way to - I wad tell ye! Living is a curse upon me; I’m in washer’s chains ‘til the end o’ time, ‘til day is gane and a’ folk bound to sleep. Tak pity on a poor plackless grouse, bid my master ne’er tie me mair.”

Green eyes caught the light as they turned towards Castiel for explanation, but from the slump of his shoulders Dean knew that they could not be rid of her permanently even before the angel indicated so. Sam sighed as he swung an iron crowbar down at her and she vanished into nothingness for the time being. “At least she won’t be able to kill anyone in the meantime, whether or not she’s telling the truth about it being against her will.”

“She certainly looked like it was against her will to me,” Castiel said, following Sam up the hill towards the car. “I think we should make the one who put her up to this pay.”

“Whoa, those are some strong words there, Cas. You’d have to take out the personification of fate, and the washerwoman herself, and whoever invented these bean nighe creatures in the first place if you wanted to really get justice against the people responsible. That’s just not how it works. Besides, her presence has caused the death of five people in this area alone that we know of. Who knows what else she’s done in her time.”

“And those are the real chains she was speaking of, I think.” Cas looked up into the clouds, sick at the idea of what was up above them and what he had done up there. Dean clapped a hand on his shoulder as he approached from behind, bringing him from his revery to show him a little yellow brick.

“Look! I found that oatmeal soap you got me.” His cheeks were still tear-tracked but the smile on his face said that the question incident was all but forgotten. Maybe that’s how he wanted it to be - maybe Castiel could learn a thing or two from him.


	21. Chapter 21

**Sam**

The harp. It was a harp. A harp. A girl with a harp. These were the things that played over in Sam’s mind as Dean and Castiel messed around in the back seat. No, certainly not that kind of messing around, not when they were so close to the answer. Instead, Dean was heating up the back windows of his Baby with his breath, teaching Cas to make the sort of markings they’d talked about the other day. It was his brother’s way of apologizing, Sam knew, because if anyone else had tried it he’d have strung them up and beat them like a pinata.

Just like the spinach puffs that reminded Sam of his Stanford days, Dean’s method of apologizing and guilty worrying usually ran to things that made him uncomfortable but didn’t involve talking. From what he could overhear as he went over the brochure from the Highland Festival, Cas was teaching him how to write in Enochian. “Gal,” Cas was saying, “And then graph. No Dean, like this.”

Their presence was a sweet ache to Sam’s insides. So, the list: Gillian McCreedy, River Keating. River was a guy, so that didn’t fit. Julia Allen, but she hadn’t been able to play because she was dead before the festival even started. Helen Hwang didn’t fit, and Sam wasn’t going to say anything about what kind of name Helen was for an eleven year old. Violet Jacobi. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed up at the upholstery.

“So which one of the little evil ones is it, Sammy?”

Sam huffed and turned around to kneel on the passenger seat. “None of them seem to fit, not really. What? Did you write something about my hair on that?”

“What? Pfft, no. I mean yeah, of course I did, but it didn’t fit. Check it out, Cas wrote all three of our names in Enochian.” It brought a smile to Sam’s face, much against his will. He reached out with his right hand, hanging onto the headrest with the other, and stroked the hair off of Castiel’s forehead. For a messed up immortal warrior of the lord, he was a good kid.

There in the fading fog of the window was the roster of Team Free Will on proud display and looking upon it Sam was about as pleasantly lovesick as he’d ever been. They had to get the hell out of this little town as soon as possible, back on the road with time to sort out whatever this was between them.

“George Magoon, descendent of the founder, is still alive,” Castiel said from his position nearly on Dean’s lap. They were both crowded against the window directly behind Sam. “He is the only one, young or old, male or female, to have survived.”

“Well, yeah, but yesterday we established that he wasn’t the one doing it and he isn’t a chick either.”

“Not only that,” added Sam, “But he doesn’t play any instruments that we know of.”

“And we know he’s not secretly a woman because A) wow, no and B) he’s fathered a child.”

All three of them looked to each other at the same time with dawning realization. “The daughter. Okay, crap. Buckle up guys, we’re gonna get this done before the day’s out.”

Dean was loathe to follow the traffic laws on a good day and wasn’t even worth arguing with when they were on the trail of an unhinged worshipper of the occult, so Sam said nothing as his head plastered to the back of his seat and they had to swerve to avoid a cat. The iron bar was tucked against his side to keep them inconspicuous, and in the five or so minutes it took to get there Sam was playing out the possibilities of attack in his mind.

Would George be home? Would Abby? Did they knock or try to break in and find the harp? Were they going to let her go or kill her or somehow turn her in to the police and try to make charges of what essentially amounted to witchcraft stick? Why was Sam never able to see the worst in people right from the get-go? It would have saved the lives of two people if only he’d put it together earlier. If only, if only.

“Here. I say we try to get invited in and see if we can get her to show us which instrument she used. I saw a few of them sitting around in there and unless we just want to trash the joint and attract the attention of the neighbors, we should make this as quick and clean as possible.” Castiel was nodding, the great strategist agreeing with Dean, who considered himself a man of action and no better. They were much of a sameness, those two. Sam climbed out of the car and held the crowbar under his jacket as they rang the doorbell. The uncanny feeling of being an armed thug had worn off long ago, for better or worse.

It was the middle of the day but the door swung open soon enough to reveal a bleary-eyed George with a tumbler of scotch in hand. He looked to be a fair ways into the bottle, if his swaying form was anything to go by. “You again?” he said, sounding depressed. “Why do you folks keep bothering me? I told you, there’s nothing else to say.”

"It’s okay Dad, I’ll take care of it. Just go sit back on the couch and watch your shows.” From out of her father’s shadow stepped Abby Magoon, also a descendent of the town’s founder. She was as normal as could be in her knitted sweater and jeans with her hair pulled up in a ponytail. Nothing at all like someone who would order the deaths of others, but then again they never looked the type.

“What the hell are you three doing here? I thought we ran you out of town yesterday after what happened to poor Will.” Her arms were folded across her chest, just in case they’d somehow thought she’d changed their mind about them. Fair enough.

“Oh, very sorry to interrupt. I suppose you’ve heard about Jack Morrison’s death by now have you?” Sam said, reaching out with his free arm to shake her hand and hope that the fine tremor of disgust running through him didn’t show.

“Yes,” she said as her father shuffled away into the living room leaving the four of them parked in the doorway. “Father had a lot of respect for Jack. Pity about the heart attack but then again, he was of a certain age. These things are inevitable.”

Oh yeah, it was definitely her. “We were hoping to ask him a few questions about Jack, just to follow up with the discussion we had with him last night.”

“You were talking to my father last night? What about?”

“Just bits and pieces of the history of Scotland and the like. You know, the washerwoman legend and all that.” Dean smiled, rocking on his heels. Usually a sign he had a gun cocked and ready in his pocket. “Think he’d be willing to wax nostalgic on the good ol’ Mr. Morrison?”

Abby’s eyes narrowed. “Why the sudden interest in the washerwoman?”

“Why shouldn’t we be interested? She’s a Scottish legend.” That was Castiel, trying to look casual even when speaking through gritted teeth. “Look, your father survived her according to his own admission. We just want to know how that can be done.”

“My father’s not well,” she began, crossing the open room to get out a teacup and some loose leaf. “He was obviously imagining things.”

“So you’re saying you’re not a believer,” Sam pried. It was her, he just knew it. Felt it in his gut every time they were about to take someone down. The thing was, he always preferred a clean confession; perhaps it was the lawyer in him.

“Well, I’m not sure I’d say that. My mother always told me that fairies would take care of us.” A younger Dean, telling him that their mother said angels watched over them, echoed in Sam’s mind. Perhaps they were all set up for disillusionment in the end, because angels certainly weren’t what he’d imagined them to be as a boy and he was pretty sure fairies weren’t what Abby had thought either.

“Maybe she told you that if you did certain things you could summon fairies too, am I right?” Dean kept one eye on her even as Cas shifted towards the couch and started to quietly press George for information. The man was slumped on the sofa with two shirt buttons popped open and a wet stain on his sleeve from where he’d spilled his scotch.

His daughter scoffed. “Of course, who doesn’t grow up hearing fairy tales? All of us with the ancestry around here have heard her tales. There’s no need to go bothering my father about it.” A gleam came into her eyes as she seemed to think she was gaining the upper hand. “I could show you some of the places she’s rumored to hang out if you like.”

“No, but thanks for the offer.” Dean smiled. “We’ve actually just been to -”

“I’m not crazy! I’m not! Abby, how could you say such a thing about your own father! Didn’t I raise you better than that?” George was on his feet and in her face in seconds, breathing out foul alcohol clouds while Castiel trailed behind. What had happened to that green tea from the night before and that warning from the doctor, Sam wanted to say.

It was like seeing a senator at a campaign event and his long-suffering assistant helpless to stop him from career suicide. Then again, Sam realized, that’s exactly what it was: George was the powerful head of that tiny town just like the generations before him. He was the one who kept things in order in Scotland, except that the way Abby flinched suggested a weakness of character kept behind closed doors. Who was really running things?

“Mr. Magoon, I just have one question for you,” Sam interrupted. “Which of these harps on your walls do you think would be most effective in calling a bean nighe?”

“What? You can’t possibly think that - I would never -” George spluttered, approaching with clenched fists. Sam blocked a punch while Castiel slipped away, running his analyzing gaze over the various instruments. He leaned forward, sniffing at the air the way he had scented the fairy the first day they’d arrived. Abby moved to stop him and Dean cleared his throat, letting the sound of the safety off his gun do his talking.

“Just let the man do his job, Abby,” said Dean.

“What the hell is the meaning of this? Who are you freaks? You come into our house, interrupt our grieving and now you’re threatening us? Who the hell do you think you are?” George at least did not have a gun pointed at him and it took Sam awkwardly wrapping his arms around the man’s considerable girth to keep him under control until Cas finally turned towards them again.

"It’s this one. Shall I salt and burn it?”

“Just try snapping it in half first,” Dean called over Abby’s shouts of ‘no!’. “We can salt and burn it later.” It was with the first crunch of wood that they learned Abby’s mother had given her the harp for her eighth birthday, not long before she’d passed away. They learned all this in a flood of hysterical tears wherein George broke free of Sam’s relaxed grasp to comfort his child and Sam had a split second of misgivings before the bean nighe appeared right in the Magoon’s living room.

Away from the water she was even more repugnant, vivid in both smell and texture. Her green cloak was run through with black mold and white pond scum, thrown back over her shoulders to expose her naked, decrepit form. Her rheumy eyes sought each of them in turn, including the Winchesters and their angel. Sam reached for the amber soap in his pocket and tugged at the iron weapon tucked awkwardly into his jacket. Abby’s eyes were round with fear and George’s with a special kind of disbelief, a horror that said he hadn’t ever guessed it could be his precious daughter behind the killings.

“But Abby, I told you when you were young that the bean nighe was nothing but trouble. Good people have died, Abigail! What have you done?!” He shook his daughter in his arms then, no longer hugging her to protect her from the evil men who had invaded their home. “How could you do that to poor Jack and - and those kids! How could you?”

“All people who’ve wronged you, Daddy. Julia Allen and her asking you for money right after Mom had passed. Daniel Paterson, I’d meant to kill senior instead of junior. He stole your place on the Selectman’s Committee the year Mom died. Little Angus was just an unfortunate side effect. Will Nelson, that was for me. That was for the Christmas party and the affront to you as well. If Mom had been alive …”

“Your mother died when you were eight, Abby!” George crossed himself. “God knows I miss her every day but you can’t go through your life mourning and resenting every single person around you! What about poor Jack? He was a harmless old man and a part of this community.”

“He asked you for help with the pond on his property even as you were mourning from Mom’s funeral. How could he do that? Didn’t he see that you were in pain?” Abby’s lips were pressed tightly together in a grief that had done nothing but fester over the years. Sam swallowed and looked carefully towards the bean nighe, hoping for no sudden moves. She herself might have said that she couldn’t be killed, but a good swipe of his crowbar might help. Sam was dying to find out if latin exorcism spells did anything on fairies.

“Lament her a’ ye rantin’ core all ye like, but she maun tremble under Fortune’s cummock.” The washerwoman lifted a skeletal-thin digit and pointed it at each of them in turn until it rested on her master. Her mistress, Sam supposed, and one who had nearly cost Dean his leg and Sam himself his life. “The miscreant maun feel the pain she gives.”

“Oh no, oh no,” wailed George, falling to his knees, “Don’t kill her! Please, she’s just a child!”

Castiel frowned and looked first at Sam and then Dean. “She’s not going to kill her, she’s going to take her.” Abby herself must have known it, because her shoulders sagged at the words and she didn’t fight even as the bean nighe’s slimy arms wrapped around her.

George wept and grabbed for his daughter, the only thing he had left, but they vanished into nothingness right under his fingertips. All that remained was a scummy puddle on the floor where the washerwoman had stood, glinting faintly in the afternoon sunlight. His voice was a quiet croak. “Is that - do you think that’s what happened to the Fuller kid back in the fifties?”

So everyone in the town must have known who was responsible for the run of deaths prior, then. It hadn’t been listed in any newspaper or website that Sam had found, but it figured that a small town would keep its secrets. “I guess so.”

“How do I get her back?” George was red-faced and splotchy, snot running down his nose unheeded as he turned towards them desperately. It was tough to watch, but Dean clapped a hand down on the man’s shoulder and handed him his bottle of scotch.

“I don’t think you do, man. I mean, she got five people murdered and nearly took out me and my brother. Even if she came back people would figure it out eventually. I’ve been to Avalon before; it’s probably better than being lynched by a mob of angry townspeople.”

There was an odd pause, and then: “Wait, you’re brothers?” The older man gave a little shiver that made Sam roll his eyes. “But no, you’ve been to Avalon! Tell me, tell me how to get there!”

“Abby figured it out. I’m sure you’ve got some way of knowing.” Dean put two fingers up in the universal gesture for I’m-watching-you and started backing away towards the front doors. “If I hear you’re terrorizing the town I’m telling you now, we’ll be back to put you down. I suggest you finish the booze and then figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. C’mon Cliff and Angus.”

 

 

**Dean**

Cas gathered up the pieces of the broken harp and followed along, already so in sync with the ways of Winchesters that he didn’t even need to be asked. Made a guy want to shake his head for dragging an angel into the lifestyle, especially when Dean himself wasn’t sure on half the days if this was what he should be doing with his life. Then again he couldn’t imagine himself doing anything else, and if that was how Cas felt too then who was Dean to stop him?

“Salt and burn and then get the hell out of this town?” asked Sam, helping Cas make sure all the pieces were gathered up in a black cloth bag used especially for that purpose. Dean knew how his brother felt as well; that they might have stopped the killings but they certainly hadn’t saved anybody. He nodded wordlessly and climbed into the driver’s seat.

They drove with the Brimstone Howl permeating the Impala’s interior with the volume on low. Chests heaved with heavy breaths, weighed down by a case that was supposed to show how right Cas fit at their side, how he could be the third member of their little party. Figured that when they got together no one won; it was always like that between them.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face as he climbed out of the car and stood by the edge of the trees, flicked idly at the flint on his lighter as he watched his brother empty the bag into the grass, then looked up across the clearing and met Cas’ eyes. Holy shit was he ever in love with the man, if the way his heart began to pound was any indication

“And don’t come back,” he said to the vanished washer woman as the instrument went up in flames. It took two strides for Sam with his long legs to reach him and put an arm around his shoulders. Before he could register whether that was okay or not, Sam had him in a bear hug and had his nose buried against the criss-cross of scars on Dean’s neck.

It was normal, or it was supposed to be, except that they’d been all over each other last night and now that the pressure of closing the case was off of them the barbed words of his father in his dreams lingered on the edges of his mind, waiting for an opening. But then Sam was pawing at him and he never could say no to his little brother, so he kissed Sam's chin, grabbed the hem of Cas' coat and said, “Let’s drive as far as we can and then get a room for the night. One big king-sized bed and a shower large enough for this oatmeal soap to get some real use.”

With that he left the banks of the streams and rivers that haunted him behind, at least for now. If he was lucky enough, maybe he could keep the tiny family he’d formed of his own free will. Maybe they would take turns banishing one another’s demons. Maybe they could take turns sleeping in the middle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! I welcome all comments, suggestions, friendship and anything else you'd like to throw at me.


End file.
